Rapid wetting of shear-thinning fluids

By studying the spreading behavior of aqueous glycerol and polymer solutions on smooth surfaces, we found that shear-thinning solutions behave similarly to water in the initial spreading phase, while glycerol solutions show significantly slower spreading. For the glycerol solutions, an increase in glycerol concentration effectively increases the contact-line friction, resulting in increased resistance to wetting. For the polymeric solutions, however, an increase in polymer concentration does not modify contact-line friction. As a consequence, the energy dissipation at the contact line can not be controlled by varying the amount of additives for shear-thinning fluids.