| This work addresses both the design and experimental procedure for finding the wetting transition in water on a variety of solid surfaces. When a liquid drop is placed onto a solid surface it will either completely spread out or form a finite contact angle between 0 and 180 degrees.;When a drop spreads, forming a film across the surface, this is called complete wetting. If a drop forms a finite contact angle with the surface, this is called partial wetting. A wetting transition is a surface phase transition from partial to complete wetting. This work is the first to experimentally measure the wetting transition in water on a solid surface.;The temperature at which the wetting transition occurs is called the wetting temperature. The wetting temperature for solid-liquid-vapor systems can be theoretically predicted using both molecular dynamics simulations and density functional theory. Density functional theory predicts, with reasonable accuracy, the wetting temperature of "simple" non-polar liquids on a solid surface. The accuracy of density functional theory in predicting wetting temperature has yet to be experimentally tested on more complex polar liquids, and more specifically on water. In this work, we set out to measure the wetting transition in water on a variety of surfaces, namely: Graphite, Sapphire, Quartz, Mica, Gold, Silicon and Hexagonal Boron Nitride. |
