Companies developing and offering products in the fields of coatings and paints, life sciences and electronics often require well-controlled and homogeneous surface wetting properties (wetting is the quality of how a liquid comes in contact with a solid surface). This is especially true for high-value products, such as liquid-repellent coatings (e.g. to protect outdoor sensors against rain, to keep cars/airplanes clean from dust, or to keep medical devices clean when in contact with blood) and laboratory supplies (e.g. accurate handling of liquid droplets in life science laboratories). However, current commercial wetting characterization instruments cannot solve the wetting problems the companies experience during R&D and production quality control. Specifically, the conventional wetting measuring techniques, such as contact angle measurements, suffer from significant disadvantages, including slow measurement speed, inaccurate results on liquid-repellent surfaces and problems with uneven surfaces (e.g. textiles). This severely limits their use in quality control applications and research and development of surfaces and coatings. To solve these issues, we have developed Scanning Droplet Tribometer (SDT), which allows scanning of local surface wetting properties over 10.000 times faster than conventional contact angle measurements. The technique is based on non-contact actuation of a test droplet, which allows characterization of uneven surfaces and challenging geometries, even on highly liquid-repellent surfaces. We have developed a prototype SDT instrument, investigated the market potential and filed a patent application.
