Kinetics of wetting

Wetting and de-wetting processes play an important role in many natural and technological processes. In many cases, wetting is an essential prerequisite for application, for example in paint films, crop sprays, cosmetics, pharmaceutical tablets and in preparation of suspensions. Both equilibrium and dynamic processes of wetting are important in coatings. In many industrial and medical applications, some strategies to control drop-spreading on solid surfaces are being developed. One possibility is that a surfactant, a surface-active polymer, a polyelectrolyte or their mixture are added to a liquid (usually water). Recently discovered trisiloxane and other silicone-based surfactants show very unusual behaviour. [Continues.]