Topic summary
wettability
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Wetting.
Wetting of low-energy surfaces
Knowing the critical surface tension of a solid, it is possible to predict the wettability of the surface. The wettability of a surface is determined by the outermost chemical groups of the solid. Differences in wettability between surfaces that are similar in structure are due to differences in the packing of the atoms. For instance, if a surface has branched chains, it will have poorer packing than a surface with straight chains. Lower critical surface tension means a less wettable material surface.