Effect of temperature on the dynamic contact angle

The temperature influence on the contract angle relaxation of partially wetting drops is measured for squalane on poly(ethyleneterephthalate). The results are analyzed with the molecular kinetic model, a hydrodynamic model and a model that combines the two previous ones For each temperature all three approaches can fit our experiments well, but only the molecular kinetic approach leads to physically meaningful parameters. The associated free energy of wetting, introduced by that approach, increases weakly with temperature. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.