Captive bubble method contact angle measurement

Some of the commonly used techniques for measuring contact angle [215, 216, 217] are the sessile drop method, captive bubble method and Wilhelmy plate method. These techniques have been extensively used and well documented for characterisation of modified PE surfaces [218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230] for various applications. Whitesides et al. [231 ] studied the wetting of flame-treated polyethylene film having ionisable organic acids and bases at the polymer-water interface. The effect of the size of substituted alkyl groups in amide and ester moieties on the surface hydrophilicity was also studied [232]. The biocompatibility of the polyethylene film surface modified with various water-soluble polymers was evaluated using the same technique [233]. The surface properties of hy-perbranched polymers have been very recently reported [234]. 

Surface Tension Measurement. The surface tension of the surfactant solution was determined by means of the Dynamic Contact Angle Tester FIBRO DAT 1100 (FIBRO Systems, Sweden) using the pendant drop method. It was also an output of the ADSA captive bubble contact angle measurements with surfactant solutions. 

Photoresist layers processed at the threshold dose have a thickness of about 5 nm which is too low to show a swelling effect detectable by ellipsometry. However, long-time contact angle measurements using the ADSA captive bubble method revealed a decrease of the contact angle with time as shown in Fig. 7. At the beginning, the water contact angle was 50°. After 50 h a value of only 39° was obtained. It is assumed that the decrease in con-... 

Scheme 2 Comparison of the geometries of the receding contact angle responsible for the capillary forces between photoresist lines in the photolithographic process (left image) and the receding contact angle measured by the captive bubble method (right image)...

Contact angle measurements provide information on the wettability of the sample, the surface energetics of the solid, and the interfacial properties of the solid-liquid interface. The samples were immersed in water and captive air and octane bubbles were determined by measuring the bubble dimensions. By measurement of both air and octane contact angles the surface free energy (.y) of the solid-vapor ( > ) interface may be calculated by use of Young s equation and the narmonic mean hypothesis for separation of the dispersive and polar components of the work of adhesion. This method for determination of surface and interfacial proper-... 

Figure 34-19. The captive-bubble method for measuring contact angle.

The octane-in-water contact angle was measured using the captive-bubble method described by HAMILTON. The measurements were carried out with a contact angle goniometer of the Fa. Lorentzen and Wettres (Stockholm),... 

A distinction can be made among the available methods between static and dynamic contact angle determination methods. In the case of a static determination the contact angle of a drop with an immobile solid/liquid/gas interface is determined microscopically (sessile drop). In the captive bubble method the contact angle of an air bubble, which is located under the solid surface in contact with the liquid, is determined. In contrast to the sessile drop method, in the captive bubble method the contact angle is measured at a completely wet surface. 

Equilibrium contact angles can be measured very simply from the profiles of liquid drops (Figure 2a) or bubbles (Figure 2b) resting on a plane surface. These methods are known as the sessile drop and captive bubble methods respectively. The contact angle may be measured indirectly by... 

Fig. Zll Schematic of contact angle measurement using the captive bubble method...

Alternatively, we can measure the contact angle at the edge of a bubble. This method is called captive or sessile bubble. In this case a bubble is positioned usually at the top of a cell which is otherwise filled with liquid. The method is less sensitive to pollution of the interface. In addition, the vapor phase is automatically saturated. 

Contact angles are commonly measured by the sessile drop, the captive bubble, and the Wilhelmy plate method. To characterize the wetting properties of powders the capillary rise method is used. 

A captive air (or other gas) bubble is formed in the liquid contacting with the solid by means of an inverted micrometer syringe beneath the substrate which is kept in the test liquid. The contact angle is measured by means of a goniometer microscope or video camera. In this method, the solid-vapor interface is in equilibrium with the saturated vapor... 

There are a variety of simple and inexpensive techniques for measuring contact angles, most of which are described in detail in various texts and publications and will be mentioned only briefly here. The most common direct methods (Fig. 17.4) include the sessile drop (a), the captive bubble (b), the sessile bubble (c), and the tilting plate (d). Indirect methods include tensiometry and geometric analysis of the shape of a meniscus. For solids for which the above methods are not applicable, such as powders and porous materials, methods based on capillary pressures, sedimentation rates, wetting times, imbibition rates, and other properties, have been developed. 

Experimentally, contact angle is measured based on geometry of the droplet or the interfacial tension across the contact line using various techniques such as tilting plate, sessile bubble and drop, captive bubble, the Wilhelmy method, and so on. Similarly, in simulation, three methods are generally used to find the contact angle. 

Regions of practically immobile states of a meniscus are shown in Fig. 25 by arrows on the pressure axis for solution concentration Co = 5 x 10 (curves 3) and 5 x 10 M (curves 4). This makes it possible to assess static values of contact angles. Because of small hysteresis (the regions shown by arrows are short) the mean value of static contact angle is equal to 40° for C = 5 X 10 M and 36° at 5 x 10 M. The calculated values are close to those measured using captive bubbles [45] and differential ellipsometry method [46] on quartz surface for the same solutions. 

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