Balance of Interfacial Tensions The Wetting Approach

Describing bioadhesion in terms of wetting assumes the creation of a cell-substratum interface at the expense of a cell-liquid and a substratum-liquid interlace. Consider a spherical particle P, immersed in a liquid L, having an interfacial tension The parti- 

Adhesion occurs for 0. Unfortunately, y , y, and particularly y cannot be assessed unambiguously. The problems involved in determining interfacial tensions 

FIGURE 20.5 Deformation of a spherical particle contacting a flat solid surface. 

The DLVO theory, the principles of polymer-mediated steric interactions, and the wetting approach are aU generic and they should therefore be interconnected. However, the relation between DLVO and steric interactions on the one hand and the interfacial tensions on the other will not be appreciated from the foregoing discussion. In Section 20.5, the apparent disparate approaches are united in a general thermodynamic analysis of particle adhesion. 

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