The dynamics of impacting water droplets on alkanethiol self-assembled monolayers with co-adsorbed CH3 and CO2H terminal groups

The impact of water droplets (diameter 3.6 mm) at a fixed Weber number of 59 on solid surfaces with precisely tailored surface wettabilities was studied experimentally using a high-speed imaging camera at 2500 frames per second. Solid surface wettability was varied using four fractional mixtures of self-assembled monolayers of 1-octadecanethiol and 16-mercaptohexadecanoic acid. The surfaces so obtained are characterized for contact angle and chemical functionality using the axisymmetric drop shape analysis profile (ADSA-P) technique and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Our results correlate the wetting effects of the impacting droplets with the surface energy and contact angle measurements of the tailored surfaces. Literature models for the maximum spreading diameter are employed and compared with those from our experiments. An equation is also proposed for the maximum spreading diameter which makes use of the correct contact angles and results in the least error among the models considered. As a consequence of Young's equation, the correct contact angles to be used for droplet impact dynamics should be the corresponding advancing angles on a smooth substrate of interest. We also conclude that accurate examination of literature models requires careful experimentation on impact dynamic data on well-prepared and characterized surfaces such as those presented here.