Wettability of polymers

An empirical relationship has been shown between the contact angles for wettability of a polymer film and the degree to which photooxidation products have accumulated in the surface layers of the film. Changes in wettability of polymer films during photooxidation are markedly dependent on the nature of the polymer. In the detection and identification of the earliest processes and products of surface photooxidation, the wettability method is far more sensitive than the infrared transmission or attenuated reflectance spectra and is about as sensitive but more specific than the ultraviolet transmission spectrum. Contact angle measurements themselves can be used as leads in the selection of solvents for the separation and identification of photooxidation products formed in the surface layers of a polymer film and are potentially useful in establishment of rates of specific processes. 

The Wettability of Polymer Surfaces and the Spreading of Polymer Liquids... 

Major improvements in predicting wetting and wettability of polymer systems need major advances in two specific areas a) the molecular configuration at the solid/ liquid boundary especially for relatively polar materials and, b), the wettability of non-ideal (heterogeneous) surfaces. The reader is recommended to two reviews that discuss very recent advances in these and related areas. 

WEHABILITY OF POLYMERS. THEORETICAL TREATMENTS OF WETTABILITY OF POLYMERS. 

As stated in the Introduction, physical adsorption is common to all three types of adhesion systems. For good adsorption, wetting is necessary and essential. Wetting and wettability of polymers have been reviewed by Zisman, " ) Mittal,etc. In the past, efforts have been focused on the thermodynamic aspects of wetting because wetting is the only way to achieve maximum thermodynamic (Lifshitz-van der Waals) work of adhesion according to Dupree s... 

Kawasaki K (1960) 8tudy of wettability of polymers by sliding of water drop. J Colloid 8ci 15 402- 07... 

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