Characterization of a Poly(2‐oxazoline) Library by High‐Throughput, Automated Contact‐Angle Measurements and Surface‐Energy Calculations

Abstract

Summary: The feasibility of automated, high‐throughput contact‐angle measurements is demonstrated using a modified commercial contact‐angle measuring apparatus. Droplets are automatically dispensed, analyzed and aspirated. The system automatically measures more than 100 contact angles per hour using two test liquids, and calculates surface energies using the equation of state method. A library of poly(2‐oxazoline) homo‐ and block copolymers was investigated. Polymers with a 2‐nonyl‐2‐oxazoline block were found to have considerably lower surface energies.Setup used here for characterization of the surface properties of a library of poly(2‐oxazoline) homo‐ and block copolymers.imageSetup used here for characterization of the surface properties of a library of poly(2‐oxazoline) homo‐ and block copolymers.

Inkjet Printing of Narrow Conductive Tracks on Untreated Polymeric Substrates

“…An OCA30 optical contact-angle measuring instrument from Dataphysics was used to determine the contact angles of both diiodomethane and ethylene glycol as apolar and polar test liquids, respectively. Surface energies were calculated from the obtained contact angles using the Neumann equation of state [27]. …”

Poly(2‐oxazoline)s based on fatty acids

“…The poly(NonOx) block was found to be dominant for the thermal properties, i.e., only NonOx containing block copolymers were semicrystalline [16,17,67], the surface properties, i.e., lower surface energy for NonOx containing block copolymers [17,68,69], the surface morphology, i.e., rougher surface for NonOx containing diblock copolymers due to the presence of crystallites [69,70], as well as mechanical properties for which the semi-crystalline nature of the poly(NonOx) resulted in a modulus in between 1 and 2 GPa for the diblock copolymers with NonOx and a modulus of around 4 GPa for the diblock copolymers without NonOx [71].…”

Thermal, Mechanical, and Surface Properties of Poly(2‐N‐alkyl‐2‐oxazoline)s

“…From the contact angles of ethylene glycol and diiodomethane, the surface energies have been calculated using Neumann's equation of state. [16,17] Measurements have been performed with drop volumes of 1 mL (diiodomethane) and 3 mL (ethylene glycol), respectively, on four different spots for each coating.…”