A traditional coating is usually applied either to protect the material beneath or to improve its visual appearance. More and more research interest is being put on coatings that in addition, can serve some other function. These types of coatings are generally called functional coatings. The list of different functional coatings is extensive but some of the most studied are anti-fouling, antimicrobial, conductive, self-cleaning, photo and thermochromic, self-healing and superhydrophobic coatings.
Often the purpose of the functional coating is to repel water or oil from the material surface. For example, different types of coatings on the textile are already utilized to improve their performance in outdoor clothing. Windows and solar cells are coated to make them easier to clean or even self-cleaning, and windshields are coated to prevent fogging. In all these example high contact angles between water and the surface are required.
Static contact angle measurements are often used to evaluate the quality of functional coatings. However, the static contact angle alone is often not enough to separate different surfaces from the other. When contact angles are high, even the advancing contact angles are relatively close to each other and the main difference comes from the receding angle or contact angle hysteresis.
To read how dynamic contact angle measurements have been utilized in the study of functional coatings, please download to the case study below.
Susanna is an Application Scientist at Biolin Scientific. In her PhD thesis, she developed fabrication methods for a new type of inorganic-organic polymers. Microfabricated polymer chips were utilized as tool for biomolecule separation in analytical chemistry.
