Contact angle and related measurements-insights into paper surface characterization, 2012 Advanced Coating Fundamentals Symposium

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While in many other industries wettability is a key parameter measure to describe liquid and substrate interactions, standard paper testing procedures usually do not include characterization of the surface chemistry and thus the wettability of paper. One reason might be that it is difficult to measure the wettability of paper because of its rough, anisotropic and inhomogeneous surface. Therefore a set of instruments are introduced in this paper in order to allow a fast evaluation on a larger surface areas to obtain statistically significant average values. The local variations are also measured by these instruments to identify inhomogeneities which are related to print mottling and similar printing and converting problems. The set of instrument were chosen in order to try to bridge the gap between classical measuring systems and scientific analysis. The goal is to allow a faster and more targeted development in the paper industry. Two examples showing the application of these methods to real life applications are presented.