Surface Tension Effects on Fluid Flow: Preliminary Lab Results on the Interaction of Liquid Contaminants and Granular Surfaces

The physical properties of fluids play an important role in modeling fluid flow in porous media and interpreting seismic and electrical data. We investigate the wettability of glass surfaces by distilled water and 1-Propanol. The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of a film of 1-Propanol on the wettability, or contact angle, of a simple glass surface when dipped in water. Four notable differences between the contact angle hysteresis curves for a clean and a 1- Propanol-contaminated glass plates dipped in water were observed. The differences were in (1) contact angle hysteresis magnitude, (2) wettability, (3) advancing stick-slip magnitude, and (4) repeatability of advancing contact angle.