Wettability of polymers by aqueous solution of binary surfactants mixture with regard to adhesion in polymer–solution system II. Critical surface tension of polymers wetting and work of adhesion

The values of the surface tension of the aqueous solution of CTAB+TX-100, CTAB+TX-114 and TX-100+TX-114 mixtures and those of the contact angle for the same solutions on PTFE, PMMA and nylon 6 surface were applied for the studies of the correlation between the critical surface tension of PTFE, PMMA and nylon 6 wetting and their surface tension as well as the influence of the kind, concentration and composition of the aqueous solutions of binary mixtures of surfactants and the adhesion to those polymers. From these studies it results that the critical surface tension of PTFE wetting by the investigated solutions is somewhat higher than its surface tension determined from the contact angles for n-alkanes. However, the critical surface tension of PMMA and nylon 6 wetting is lower than their surface tension determined by using the van Oss et al. approach to the interfacial tension. The critical surface tension of PMMA and nylon 6 wetting was also compared to their surface tension calculated from the Neumann equation. It was found that there is agreement between these values if the surface tension of these polymers was determined on the basis of the solution surface tension and contact angle data corresponding to the concentration equal or higher than the critical micelle concentration. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.