Spreading law on a completely wettable spherical substrate: The energy balance approach.

Abstract

The spreading of a cap-shaped spherical droplet on a completely wettable spherical substrate is studied. The nonequilibrium thermodynamic formulation is used to derive the thermodynamic driving force of spreading including the line-tension effect. Then the energy balance approach is adopted to derive the evolution equation of the spreading droplet. The time evolution of the contact angle θ of a droplet obeys a power law θ∼t^{-α} with the exponent α, which is different from that derived from Tanner's law on a flat substrate. Furthermore, the line tension must be positive to promote complete wetting on a spherical substrate, while it must be negative on a flat substrate.