The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Photo Jan Forsman

Jan Forsman

Professor

Photo Jan Forsman

On the existence of prewetting in supracritical fluid mixtures

Author

  • Jan Forsman
  • Clifford E. Woodward

Summary, in English

We demonstrate the existence of a first-order prewetting transition of a supracritical model polymer solution adjacent to an attractive surface. The model fluid we use mimics (qualitatively) an aqueous polyethylene oxide solution and, like the actual solution, displays a closed loop 2-phase region with an upper and lower critical solution temperature. The model fluid is shown to undergo a prewetting transition at an adjacent attractive surface. For sufficiently strong surface affinities, the prewetting transition may occur even at temperatures below the lower critical solution temperature (supracriticality). This phenomenon follows from non-local thermodynamics when the length-scale of the relevant fluid structures of surface films are commensurate or smaller than the range of intermolecular interactions.

Department/s

  • Computational Chemistry

Publishing year

2025-03-20

Language

English

Pages

2723-2728

Publication/Series

Soft Matter

Volume

21

Issue

14

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Royal Society of Chemistry

Topic

  • Condensed Matter Physics (including Material Physics, Nano Physics)
  • Theoretical Chemistry (including Computational Chemistry)

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1744-683X