Surface tension and wetting course

Surface tension and wetting course

Superhydrophobicity and Wetting Symposium organizes a surface tension and wetting course for newcomers in the field, and for scientists and engineers who want to brush up their knowledge. Teachers in this course are prof. David Quéré (ESPCI) and prof. Alidad Amirfazli (York University), who are both internationally recognized experts of wetting phenomena.

The objective of the course is to clearly establish how the apparent wetting quantities and phenomena arise from the fundamental physical properties of surfaces and liquids, and to demonstrate how these properties are realized in various practical systems of interest. Another key topic is the metrology of wetting: advantages and shortcomings of e.g. the optical contact angle measurements will be discussed.

The topics of the lectures are:

Lesson 1: Fundamentals of Wetting (60 min, AMIRFAZLI)

  • Bulk versus surface phase
  • Surface tension as an energy
  • Surface tension as a force
  • Surface tension and wetting: spreading or not

Lesson 2: Contact Angles: Simple but Complicated! (90 min, AMIRFAZLI)

  • Contact angle a thermodynamic property
  • Contact angle hysteresis and its meaning
  • Contact angle and adhesion
  • Dynamic contact angle

Lesson 3: Dynamics of Wetting (90 min, QUÉRÉ)

  • Washburn’s law
  • Tanner’s law
  • Landau-Levich’s law

Lesson 4: Applications (60 min, AMIRFAZLI)

  • Off-set printing: ink transfer
  • Icing

Lesson 5: Measurement techniques: Fundamentals, Do’s and Don’ts (90 min, AMIRFAZLI)

  • Fundamentals of surface tension measurements and suitability of various techniques
  • Fundamentals of contact angle measurements and suitability of various techniques
  • A brief discussion on latest technologies for surface tensiometry

Lesson 6: Super-wettability (75 min, QUÉRÉ)

  • Natural examples
  • The Cassie and the Wenzel state
  • Recent developments

Lesson 7: Dynamics of non-wetting (75 min, QUÉRÉ)

  • Drop friction
  • Rolling drops
  • The Leidenfrost dynamics

The course schedule can be found from here.

The course will be held in two locations in the campus area. On the first day the venue is in Dipoli, hall Lumituuli. On the second day the venue is in Otakaari 1, hall B. More information on the venue can be found here.