Progress in Wettability Study of Reactive Systems

A review of various factors affecting wetting and spreading has been presented. Various methods for wettability studies and critical issues concerning contact angle measurement are discussed. Reactive wetting has been given a special attention in the paper and recent developments in this area are summarized and discussed. Although advanced understanding of nonreactive wetting is currently available in the literature, complete understanding of reactive wetting is still lacking due to the complexity of the phenomenon. To date, there is no single model that is generally applicable to all reactive wetting systems. Reaction between the liquid drop and substrate can take the form of dissolution, intermetallic formation, or combination of both processes. Factors affecting wettability have been summarized and discussed as well as the major available techniques to investigate wetting behaviour.