ABSTRACT
Contact angles have been a subject of interest in pure and applied sciences. Technologically, contact angles are utilized as a means of characterizing the wettability of a wide range of materials in various industries including aviation, automobiles, oil and gas, printing, and pharmaceuticals as well as wetting properties of biological surfaces such as cells, tissues, and lipids. From a purely scientific viewpoint, contact angles provide a unique means to evaluate solid surface tensions and line tension. The broad applicability of contact angles has generated great interest in developing measurement techniques. The measurement of contact angles with an acceptable accuracy and reproducibility is essential to many areas of applied surface thermodynamics. When first encountered, the measurement of contact angles appears to be quite straightforward. This apparent simplicity is, however, very misleading, and experience shows that the acquisition of thermodynamically significant contact angles requires rigorous experimental designs and reliable analysis tools.
