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Adhesion

Adhesion

Adhesion occurs when one type of molecule is attracted to a different molecule. Water exhibits adhesive properties in the presence of polar surfaces, such as glass or cellulose in plants. For instance, when water is poured into a glass, the positively charged hydrogen molecules of water are more attracted to the negatively charged oxygen molecules in the silica than to the oxygen in neighboring water molecules.
Capillary action is a result of water’s adhesive tendencies. When a narrow...

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Microtensiometer for Confocal Microscopy Visualization of Dynamic Interfaces

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A universal capillary-deflection based adhesion measurement technique.

Sudip Shyam¹, Sirshendu Misra¹, Sushanta K Mitra¹

¹Micro & Nano-Scale Transport Laboratory, Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology, Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada.

Journal of Colloid and Interface Science

|October 17, 2022

Summary

This study introduces a generalized cantilever method for accurate adhesion force measurement, overcoming limitations of optical methods and previous cantilever techniques. The key finding is that contact line depinning, not droplet pull-off, is crucial for reliable adhesion quantification across all surfaces.

Keywords:

Adhesion Cantilever-based measurement De-pinning Wetting

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Area of Science:

Surface science
Materials science
Physical chemistry

Background:

Contact angle goniometry faces optical challenges (scattering, diffraction) at the triple contact line (TCL), leading to inaccurate adhesion measurements.
Existing cantilever methods for direct adhesion measurement are limited to low-energy surfaces due to incomplete droplet retraction from high-energy surfaces.

Purpose of the Study:

To revisit and generalize the cantilever-based approach for direct adhesion measurement, making it invariant to surface wettability.
To overcome the limitations of optical methods and expand the applicability of cantilever-based adhesion measurements.

Main Methods:

Utilizing a cantilever with a probe droplet to record adhesive wetting interactions with a test substrate using a high-speed camera.
Applying image processing and motion analysis to precisely calculate adhesion forces in the sub-micron range.

Main Results:

Demonstrated that contact line depinning, rather than droplet pull-off, is the essential condition for accurate characteristic adhesion force quantification.
Revealed that depinning precedes cantilever retraction due to inertia, and characteristic adhesion corresponds to zero cantilever acceleration, not maximum deflection.

Conclusions:

The generalized cantilever approach provides a wettability-invariant method for direct adhesion force measurement.
Findings enable the rational design of advanced direct wetting characterization techniques applicable to any substrate, overcoming previous limitations.