Microscopic Interpretation of the Dependence of the Contact Angle on Roughness

The macroscopic contact angle theta(m) of a liquid drop on a rough solid surface in the presence of a gas is calculated microscopically on the basis of a variational minimization of the total potential energy of the drop. Two limiting cases are considered: the liquid penetrates into the space between asperities (Wenzel regime) and the liquid resides on the top of asperities (Cassie-Baxter regime). Long-range as well as short-range interactions between the molecules of liquid, solid, and gas are taken into account. It was also assumed that small portions of insoluble gas are accumulated near the edges of the asperities during the formation of the droplet. The contact angle depends on several parameters involved in the microscopic interactions as well as on the fractions of solid surface between asperities, and of the surface of the asperities themselves, that are in contact with the liquid. It is shown that the theory can explain the nonlinear dependence of cos theta(m) on roughness observed by Krupenkin et al. [Krupenkin, T. N.; Taylor, J. A.; Schneider, T. M.; Yang, S. Langmuir 2004, 20, 3824].(1).