Temperature regulation of the contact angle of water droplets on the solid surfaces

Abstract

We investigate theoretically the stability of the wetting property, i.e., the contact angle values, as a function of the temperature. We find that the estimated temperature coefficient of the contact angle for the water droplets on an ordered water monolayer on a 100 surface of face-center cubic (FCC) is about one order of magnitude larger than that on a hydrophobic hexagonal surface in the temperature range between 290 K and 350 K, using molecular dynamics simulations. As temperature rises, the number of hydrogen bonds between the ordered water monolayer and the water droplet will increase, which therefore enhances the hydrophilicity of the ordered water monolayer at the FCC model surface. Our work thus provides an easily controllable and reversible way to control the degree of hydrophobicity of various solid surfaces exhibiting a similar wetting property of water droplets on the ordered water monolayer as such particular FCC (100) surfaces.