Contact angle hysteresis can give valuable information on the properties of your surfaces. One of the often-used measurement methods is called tilting cradle or plate. The droplet is placed on the sample after which the tilting of the sample is started. The measurement can be done either with the manual tilting stage where only the sample stage is tilted or with the automated tilting cradle where the whole instrument is tilted.
The one benefit of automated tilting cradle is that the tilting can be done with constant inclination speed that is defined in the software. With the manual tilting stage, the speed of inclination is dependent on the user which can make it difficult to compare results between different users. With the automated method, the tilting angle is also recorded by the software which makes the determination of roll-off or sliding angle easier. Also, the placement of the drop is not that critical as the whole instrument is tilted. With the tilting stage, the drop needs to be placed on the center of the image to ensure that the droplet is visible through the whole tilting range.
As the method is based on gravity, the volume of the droplet used is meaningful. The bigger the drop, the larger the gravity affected by the drop. It is thus important to use the same drop size if the results are being compared with each other. Typically, at least 10 µl drops are used. The roll-off or sliding angle is especially sensitive to the size of the droplet used.
To see how the measurements can be done in practice, please watch the video through the link below.
Receding contact angle is the lowest possible contact angle on a given surface. Receding angle is measured on previously wetted surface.
Contact angle hysteresis can tell you about the homogeneity of your surface coating.
One should always measure the advancing and the receding contact angle to get the true picture of the surface wettability.
Due to a wide range of applications, the measurement of wettability, i.e., the contact angle measurement can be done with several different methods.
More and more research interest is being put on functional coatings. New measurement techniques are required to evaluate them.
Dynamic contact angle measurements with the needle method has been automated for reliable and repeatable results.
Contact angle hysteresis can be measured with optical (needle and tilting methods) and force (Wilhelmy method) tensiometers.
Contact angle hysteresis (CAH) is an important physical phenomenon. When you look through the window on a rainy day, you have probably noticed that some of the water droplets stick to the glass even though gravity is pulling them down. The phenomenon can be explained by contact angle hysteresis.