Forced wetting of a reactive surface.

The dynamic wetting of water on gelatin-coated poly(ethylene terephthalate) (GC-PET) has been investigated by forced wetting over a wide speed range and compared with earlier data obtained with unmodified PET. The results were analysed according to the molecular-kinetic theory of dynamic wetting (MKT). Both substrates show complex behaviour, with separate low- and high-speed modes. For the GC-PET, this is attributed to a rapid change in the wettability of the substrate on contact with water, specifically a surface molecular transformation from hydrophobic to hydrophilic. This results in a smooth wetting transition from one mode to the other. For the PET, the bimodal behaviour is attributed to surface heterogeneity, with the low-speed dynamics dominated by interactions with polar sites on the substrate that become masked at higher speeds. In this case, the transition is discontinuous. The study has general ramifications for the investigation of any wetting processes in which a physicochemical transformation takes place at the solid surface on contact with the liquid. In particular, it shows how forced wetting, combined with the MKT, can reveal subtle details of the processes involved. It is unlikely that similar insight could be gained from spontaneous wetting studies, such as spreading drops.