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Estimation of solid-liquid interfacial tension using curved surface of a soft solid
Subrata Mondal1, Monmee Phukan1, Animangsu Ghatak2
1Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur 208016, India;
Abstract:
Unlike liquids, for crystalline solids the surface tension is known to be different from the surface energy. However, the same cannot be said conclusively for amorphous materials like soft cross-linked elastomers. To resolve this issue we have introduced here a direct method for measuring solid-liquid interfacial tension by using the curved surface of a solid. In essence, we have used the inner surface of tiny cylindrical channels embedded inside a soft elastomeric film for sensing the effect of the interfacial tension. When a liquid is inserted into the channel, because of wetting-induced alteration in interfacial tension, its thin wall deflects considerably; the deflection is measured with an optical profilometer and analyzed using the Föppl-von Kármán equation. We have used several liquids and cross-linked poly(dimethylsiloxane) as the solid to show that the estimated values of the solid-liquid interfacial tension matches with the corresponding solid-liquid interfacial energy reasonably well.
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