Computer simulation studies of wetting on heterogeneous surfaces

Abstract

The wetting of solid surfaces by fluids is a problem of great practical importance that has been extensively studied over the years. Most often, the experimental work has involved measurements of the contact angle made by a liquid on the solid surface of interest. Young's equation gives the relation between the contact angle and the interfacial tensions. An alternative to the contact angle computation is the more generally applicable formulation of this problem based on simulations (and measurements) of adsorption isotherms for a fluid on a weakly interacting solid surface. We present some GCMC computations for the case of heterogeneous surfaces.