Electrowetting on glassy carbon substrates†

The wetting properties of carbon surfaces are important for a number of applications, including in electrochemistry. An under-studied area is the electrowetting properties of carbon materials, namely the sensitivity of wetting to an applied potential. In this work we explore the electrowetting behaviour of glassy carbon substrates and compare and contrast the observed response with our previous work using highly oriented pyrolytic graphite. As with the graphite substrate, “water-in-salt” electrolytes are found to suppress faradaic processes, thereby enlarging the electrochemical potential window. A notable difference in response to positive and negative polarity was seen for the graphite and glassy carbon substrates. Moreover, whereas graphite has previously been shown to give a reversible electrowetting response over many cycles, an irreversible wetting was observed for glassy carbon. Similarly, the timescales of the wetting process were much faster on the graphitic substrate. Reasons underlying these marked changes in behaviour on the different carbon surfaces are suggested.