Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Apr 21;2(2):100476.
doi: 10.1016/j.xpro.2021.100476. eCollection 2021 Jun 18.

Quantifying interfacial substrate interactions via surface energy analyses

Affiliations

Quantifying interfacial substrate interactions via surface energy analyses

T Brian Cavitt et al. STAR Protoc. .

Abstract

Determination of a substrate's surface energy profile is a facile and inexpensive method to indicate the substrate's interfacial thermodynamics with another substance (e.g., microorganisms, biomacromolecules, medical devices, etc). The following protocol details a goniometric method to calculate a substrate's surface energy profile which (1) directly correlates to a substrate's interfacial Gibbs energy (ΔG) and (2) predicts the interfacial interactions with other substances. We also provide a calculation template using advanced mathematics to expedite surface energy profile determination. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Cavitt et al. (2020).

Keywords: Biophysics; Energy; Material sciences; Microbiology; Physics.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

None
Graphical abstract
Figure 1
Figure 1
Setup for coating glass slides with OTS solution for adhering a biomacromolecule to a nonpolar substrate
Figure 2
Figure 2
Contact angle measurement station Figure 2 labels the components used to obtain the contact angle measurements where (A) is the mounted portable electronic device, (B) is the macrolens clip, (C) is the sample platform, (D) adjustable LED lamp, (E) Bunsen burner to remove humidity when lit, and (F) climate- controlled sample conditioning chamber.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Example contact angles and measurement via a screenshot of the Photo Protractor app Note: The baseline of the angles often needs to be slightly adjusted to ensure planarity with substrate (i.e., contact angle adjusts to 54.284°).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Depiction of Sheet 1 "INPUT Highlighted ID & CAs” illustrating the highlighted regions requiring the input of the sample name and contact angles, CAs (See also Data S1)
Figure 5
Figure 5
Depiction of Sheet 2 “Calculations” illustrating the breadth of calculations performed to obtain the surface energy profile boxed at bottom left (See also Data S1)
Figure 6
Figure 6
Depiction of Sheet 3 “Surface Energy Results” providing surface energy data in tabular form for facile reporting (See also Data S1)

References

    1. Boo C., Hong S., Elimelech M. Relating organic fouling in membrane distillation to intermolecular adhesion forces and interfacial surface. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2018;52:14198–14207. - PubMed
    1. Cavitt B. Mendeley Data, V1; 2021. Calculating the Five-Component Surface Energy Profile from Contact Angles (Goniometry)
    1. Cavitt T.B., Carlisle J.G., Dodds A.R., Faulkner R.A., Garfield T.C., Ghebranious V.N., Hendley P.R., Henry E.B., Holt C.J., Lowe J.R. Thermodynamic surface analyses to inform biofilm resistance. iScience. 2020;23:101702. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gilman J.J. Direct measurements of the surface energies of crystals. J. Appl. Phys. 1960;31:2208–2218.
    1. Jaccodine R.J. Surface energy of germanium and silicon. J. Electrochem. Soc. 1963;110:524–527.

Publication types

Substances

LinkOut - more resources