Adsorption and wetting phenomena at the liquid-solid interface

Control over the wetting properties of solid surfaces is of great importance for numerous practical applications, for instance inkjet printing, agriculture or spray-coating, to name a few. Although the wetting of solid surfaces by single-component liquids is relatively well understood, in practice more complex systems are often encountered. Most of the industrially used liquid mixtures are composed of multiple solvents and additions, which can substantially complicate interactions at the liquid-solid interface. Surfactants,
which are commonly added to liquid mixtures, stand out as the group of substances having an enormous impact on the interaction at liquid interfaces. Depending on the chemical characteristics of a liquid, a solid surface and type of surfactant, multiple effects can occur, such as enhanced spreading, autophobing or contact line pinning. Changes in the wetting properties of solid surfaces result from molecular interactions at the solid-liquid interface, which makes it challenging to probe the interface with experimental methods. There are also numerous liquid/surface/surfactant combinations used in applications. Together, it leads to the poor understanding and predictability of the effects that surfactants may have on the wetting properties of solid surfaces. This thesis aims to broaden the knowledge about the molecular interactions at the solid-liquid interface, focusing on systems related to inkjet printing applications.