Experimental investigation of particle-assisted wetting

In principle, one might prepare thin polymer membranes in an easy and economic way by generating a wetting layer of a polymerizable oil on a water surface, solidifying it, and transferring it to a solid substrate. However, there is hardly any oil that wets a water surface. One efficient way to assist the wetting of the water surface by an oil is to mix the oil with suitable particles. Theoretically, one expects several scenarios, which depend on the contact angles of the particles with the liquid interfaces. On the basis of these calculations, one can draw phase diagrams of particle-assisted wetting. In the current paper, we verify such a phase diagram of particle-assisted wetting experimentally.