Salt Effects on the Degradation of a Self Assembled Monolayer

Castillo, Carlos

Salt Effects on the Degradation of a Self Assembled Monolayer

Persistent URL

http://hdl.handle.net/10456/45961

Author(s)

Castillo, Carlos

Date Issued

April 2018

Abstract

When a drop of water is placed on top of a hydrophobic or hydrophilic surface, forces act upon the water molecules in the drop and either push it away to minimize contact and make the drop bead up or it pulls it closer and flattens out the droplet. By looking at the contact angle the drop makes with the surface, we can determine how hydrophobic/philic the surface is. The goal of this experiment is to use two self assembled monolayers as the surface. The hydrophobic substrate are octadecanethiol and the hydrophilic one are mercaptoundecanoic acid. Then use contact angle measurements to observe how the monolayers degrade and lose their hydrophobicity over time as they are exposed to different concentrations of multiple salt solutions.

Major

Physics

First Reader(s)

Poynor, Adelé N.