Determining Surface Energy
While surface energy is conventionally defined as the work required to build a unit of area of a given surface, when it comes to its measurement by the sessile drop technique, the surface energy is not quite as well defined. The values obtained through the sessile drop technique depend not only on the solid sample in question, but equally on the properties of the probe liquid being used, as well as the particular theory relating the parameters mathematically to one another.
There are numerous such theories developed by various researchers. These methods differ in several regards, such as derivation and convention, but most importantly they differ in the number of components or parameters which they are equipped to analyze. The simpler methods containing fewer components simplify the system by lumping surface energy into one number, while more rigorous methods with more components are derived to distinguish between various components of the surface energy. Again, the total surface energy of solids and liquids depends on different types of molecular interactions, such as dispersive (van der Waals), polar, and acid/base interactions, and is considered to be the sum of these independent components. Some theories account for more of these phenomena than do other theories. These distinctions are to be considered when deciding which method is appropriate for the experiment at hand. The following are a few commonly used such theories.
Read more about this topic: Sessile Drop Technique
Famous quotes containing the words determining, surface and/or energy:
“Our civilization has decided ... that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men.... When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Just under the surface I shall be, all together at first, then separate and drift, through all the earth and perhaps in the end through a cliff into the sea, something of me.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)
“The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)