Introduction

The aim of this meeting is to convene scientists from experimental and theoretical disciplines to discuss a number of highly topical and controversial issues related to wetting and dewetting at hydrophobic surfaces. 

The current interest in superhydrophobic surfaces has led to a conceptual widening of the term "hydrophobicity".  Non-wetting of a surface may be achieved not only by minimising the surface free energy, but also via an appropriately tailored surface morphology.  As a consequence, even low-energy liquids may dewet a surface and hydrophobicity becomes a more general "lyophobicity".   Wetting dynamics at both smooth and structured surfaces is involved in a range of surface phenomena, including contact angle hysteresis, adhesion, surface forces, self-cleaning and the boundary conditions for fluid flow. 

This very active area of current research has major cross-disciplinary implications, and a number of theoretical, modelling and experimental results are in urgent need of clarification and resolution if we are to understand better the properties and behaviour of extended and structured hydrophobic and lyophobic surfaces.

Physical chemists, biologists, materials scientists and nanotechnologists will benefit from attending this meeting, and its printed discussion.   

Themes

• Superhydrophobic Surfaces
• Dynamic Transitions 
• Liquid-vapour Interfaces and Nanobubbles
• Heterogeneous Surfaces  

Scientific Committee

Dr Hugo K Christenson (University of Leeds, UK) (Co-chair)
Professor Alenka Luzar (Virginia Commonwealth University, USA) (Co-chair)
Professor Bob Evans (University of Bristol, UK)
Dr Jim R Henderson (University of Leeds, UK)
Professor Pablo G Debenedetti (Princeton University, USA)
Professor John D Weeks (University of Maryland, USA)
Professor Michael L Klein (University of Pennsylvania, USA)

Sponsors

We are grateful to the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry and Division of Physical Chemistry and the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) for their generous sponsorship support of
Faraday Discussion 146.