Reliable Measurement of the Receding Contact Angle

Surface wettability is usually evaluated by the contact angle between the perimeter of a water drop and the surface. However, this single measurement is not enough for proper characterization, and the so-called advancing and receding contact angles also need to be measured. Measuring the receding contact angle can be challenging, especially for extremely hydrophobic surfaces. We demonstrate a reliable procedure by using the common needle-in-the-sessile-drop method. Generally, the contact line movement needs to be followed, and true receding movement has to be distinguished from "pseudo-movement" occurring before the receding angle is reached. Depending on the contact angle hysteresis, the initial size of the drop may need to be surprisingly large to achieve a reliable result. Although our motivation for this work was the characterization of superhydrophobic surfaces, we also show that this method works universally ranging from hydrophilic to superhydrophobic surfaces.