Study of Contact Angle of Water and Hysteresis of Water and Ethyl Alcohol on Self Assembled Monolayers of Octadecyltrichlorosilane in Toluene onto Glass

Experimentation in the field of surface chemistry has very practical applications that vary from its use in electrochemical systems to its consumptions in household staples such as Rain-X.  The objective of this experiment is to expand on the process of creating a liquid phobic layer on a surface and test the strength of these applied layers over a period of measured time.  We want to investigate a way to improve in the method of creating a self-assembling monolayer on a precisely measured out piece of glass.  A certain procedure used to create a self-assembled monolayer tested both the assembly and accuracy of this experiment’s octadecyltricholorsilane self assembled monolayer with toluene solvent by taking the contact angle with a goniometer.  By calculating the contact angle we take a qualitative piece of information and present it as quantitative through young’s equation in order to refine a process that could potentially be utilized for commercial use in glassware.  Results showed a positive trend and were promising and potentially useful in leading the future of this study to be expanded by manipulating other variables besides time such as temperature. In conclusion, the experiments performed will aid us in the development of better procedures for producing self assembling monolayers on glass.