Open AccessNonlinear Relationship between the Radii of Droplets and the Contact Angle of Wetting
Author(s) -
Xiaosong Wang,
Xiaobin Fan,
Aijun Hu
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
mechanical engineering research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1927-0615
pISSN - 1927-0607
DOI - 10.5539/mer.v5n2p1
Subject(s) - wetting , surface tension , contact angle , curvature , materials science , radius , tension (geology) , nonlinear system , surface energy , radius of curvature , mechanics , thermodynamics , composite material , compression (physics) , physics , mean curvature , geometry , mathematics , mean curvature flow , computer security , quantum mechanics , computer science
Wetting abilities are important in many industrial applications, for instance, the wetting abilities of electrolytes on electrodes plays a key role in improving the specific energy density of supercapacitors and lithium-ion batteries. For nano-scale wetting phenomena, we should consider the curvature effects of the surface tension and the line tension. However, previous works have not analyzed the influence of the curvature effects of the surface tension. In this manuscript, the nano-scale wetting phenomena of spherical droplets on smooth non-deformable substrates were studied by methods of thermodynamics. The total Helmholtz free energy total and the grand potential of this system are calculated. A generalized Young’s equation for wetting of spherical droplets with large enough radius is derived. It is shown that there exists a nonlinear relationship between the contact angle and the radii of droplets or the line tension.