A thermodynamic formulation is applied to examine the wetting process of a solid surface by a liquid. Attention is focused on the change of the Gibbs free energy of a given gas/liquid/solid system and the moving speed of the contact line on the solid surface. The present study demonstrates that there is a thermodynamic limitation on the wetting speed in a given system. This thermodynamic limitation leads to the verification of the postulate suggested by Blake and Ruschak [Nature (London) 282, 489 (1979)] that there is a maximum speed at which wetting can proceed for the given system.
REFERENCES
1.
2.
3.
4.
T. D.
Blake
, M.
Bracke
, and Y. D.
Shikhmurzaev
, Phys. Fluids
11
, 1995
(1999
).5.
T. D. Blake, in Wettability, edited by J. C. Berg (Dekker, New York, 1993), p. 251.
6.
7.
8.
9.
P. G.
De Gennes
, X.
Hua
, and P.
Levinson
, J. Fluid Mech.
212
, 55
(1990
).10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
S. R. de Groot and P. Mazur, Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics (North-Holland, Amsterdam; Interscience, New York, 1962).
18.
This content is only available via PDF.
© 2003 American Institute of Physics.
2003
American Institute of Physics
You do not currently have access to this content.
