When Polymer Surfaces are Not Easily Accessible
A collaboration between Brighton Science (formerly BTG Labs) and 3M scientists demonstrates that the Surface Analyst™ can provide receding contact angles. These contact angles precisely match the Wilhelmy-balance values, but in seconds instead of minutes.
The Surface Analyst does not only apply to small samples of polymer films. It can also apply to manufactured objects of almost any configuration of sample or material.
This rapid measurement enables the investigation of polymer surface properties not easily probed by other wettability measurement methods, such as dyne solutions.
Mark Strobel , Seth M. Kirk , Luke Heinzen , Eric Mischke , Christopher S. Lyons , Jim Endle , Derrick Poirier , Giles Dillingham Journal of Adhesion Science and Technology Vol. 29, Iss. 14, 2015
Contact Angle Measurements of Polar Components
In this paper, meaningful contact angles of water were obtained on corona- and flame-treated polypropylene films. Both corona- and flame-treated surfaces have contact angle hysteresis, almost all of which applies to the non-dispersive (polar) component of the surface energy (rather than by the dispersive component).
As a result, this work shows that surface heterogeneity associates primarily with the oxidized functionalities added to the polypropylene by corona and flame treatments.
Download the full paper here.