Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, Vol.313, No.1, 274-280, 2007
Dynamic wetting of Boger fluids
The impact of fluid elasticity on the dynamic wetting of polymer solutions is important because many polymer solutions in technological use exhibit non-Newtonian behaviors in the high shear environment of the wedge-like flow near a moving contact line. Our former study [G.K. Seevaratnam, Y. Suo, E. Rame, L.M. Walker, Phys. Fluids 19 (2007) Art. No. 012103] showed that shear thinning induced by a semi-flexible high molecular weight polymer reduces the viscous bending near a moving contact line as compared to a Newtonian fluid having the same zero-shear viscosity. This results in a dramatic reduction of the dependence of the effective dynamic contact angle on contact line speed. In this paper, we discuss dynamic wetting of Boger fluids which exhibit elasticity-dominated theology with minimal shear thinning. These fluids are prepared by dissolving a dilute concentration of high molecular weight polymer in a "solvent" of the oligomer of the polymer. We demonstrate that elasticity in these fluids increases curvature near the contact line but that the enhancement arises mostly from the weakly non-Newtonian behavior already present in the oligomeric solvent. We present evidence of instabilities on the liquid/vapor interface near the moving contact line. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.