Surface tension

Surface tension is a contractive tendency of the surface of a liquid that allows it to resist an external force.
Surface tension is an important property that markedly influences the ecosystem. Surface tension is
exposed, for example, any time an object or insect (e.g. water striders) that is denser than water is able to
float or run along the water surface. At liquid-air interfaces, surface tension results from the greater
attraction of water molecules to each other (due to cohesion) than to the molecules in the air (due to
adhesion). The net effect is an inward force at its surface that causes water to behave as if its surface were
covered with a stretched elastic membrane. Because of the relatively high attraction of water molecules for
each other, water has a high surface tension (72.8 millinewtons per meter at 20C) compared to that of
most other liquids. Surface tension is an important factor in the phenomenon of capillarity.
Surface tension has the dimension of force per unit length, or of energy per unit area. The two are
equivalentbut when referring to energy per unit of area, people use the term surface energywhich is a
more general term in the sense that it applies also to solids and not just liquids.In materials science, surface
tension is used for either surface stress or surface free energy.

Physics
Physical Units
Surface tension, usually represented by the symbol , is measured in forces per unit length. Its SI unit
is newton per meter but the cgs unit of dyne per cm is also used.

Surface area growth

This diagram illustrates the force necessary to increase the surface area. This force is proportional to
the surface tension.
In case of liquids, surface tension may be equivalently defined either through force or through energy.
In terms of force: surface tension \gamma of a liquid is one-half the force per unit length required to
keep still a movable side of a frame over which the liquid is stretched (say, into a thin film). To
visualize this, imagine a rectangular frame which is composed of three unmovable sides that form a

"U" shape, and the fourth, movable side that can slide, along the two parallel unmovable sides, either
towards or away from the unmovable "bottom" side of the "U." Now imagine that a liquid is stretched
into a thin film on this frame, much like soap water gets stretched over a bubble-blowing ring after the
ring is dunked into soapy water. Then it is observed[5] that the movable side will be pulled by the film
towards the "bottom" of the "U"; the force F required to stop the movable side from sliding turns out
to be proportional to the length L of the movable side. Thus the ratio F/L depends only on the intrinsic
properties of the liquid (composition, temperature, etc.), but not on its geometry; for example, if the
frame has a more complicated shape, the ratio F/L, with L the length of the movable side and F the
force required to stop it from sliding, is found to be the same for all shapes. We therefore define the
surface tension as

The reason for the 1/2 is that the film has two sides, each of which contributes equally to the force; so
the force contributed by each side is
, which adds up to a total force of F. In terms of
energy: surface tension \gamma of a liquid is the ratio of 1. the change in the energy of the liquid and
2. the change in the surface area of the liquid (that led to the change in energy). This can be easily
related to the previous definition in terms of force: if F is the force required to stop the side from
starting to slide, then this is also the force that would keep the side in the state of sliding at a constant
speed (by Newton's Second Law). But if the side is moving, then 1. the surface area of the stretched
liquid is increasing while 2. the applied force is doing work on the liquid. This means that increasing
the surface area increases the energy of the film. The work done by the force F in moving the side by
distance
is
; at the same time the total area of the film increases by
(the factor of 2 is here because the liquid has two sides, two surfaces). Thus,
multiplying both the numerator and the denominator of

by

, we get

This work W is, by the usual arguments, interpreted as being stored as potential energy. Consequently
surface tension can be also measured in SI system as joules per square meter and in the cgs system as
ergs per cm2. Since mechanical systems try to find a state of minimum potential energy, a free droplet
of liquid naturally assumes a spherical shape, which has the minimum surface area for a given
volume. The equivalence of measurement of energy per unit area to force per unit length can be
proven by dimensional analysis.

Surface curvature and pressure

Surface tension forces acting on a tiny (differential) patch of surface. x and y indicate the amount
of bend over the dimensions of the patch. Balancing the tension forces with pressure leads to the
YoungLaplace equation
If no force acts normal to a tensioned surface, the surface must remain flat. But if the pressure on one
side of the surface differs from pressure on the other side, the pressure difference times surface area
results in a normal force. In order for the surface tension forces to cancel the force due to pressure, the
surface must be curved. The diagram shows how surface curvature of a tiny patch of surface leads to a
net component of surface tension forces acting normal to the center of the patch. When all the forces
are balanced, the resulting equation is known as the YoungLaplace equation:[7]

where:

p is the pressure difference, known as the Laplace pressure.[8]

is surface tension.
Rx and Ry are radii of curvature in each of the axes that are parallel to the surface.
The quantity in parentheses on the right hand side is in fact (twice) the mean curvature of the surface
(depending on normalisation). Solutions to this equation determine the shape of water drops, puddles,
menisci, soap bubbles, and all other shapes determined by surface tension (such as the shape of the
impressions that a water strider's feet make on the surface of a pond). The table below shows how the
internal pressure of a water droplet increases with decreasing radius. For not very small drops the
effect is subtle, but the pressure difference becomes enormous when the drop sizes approach the
molecular size. (In the limit of a single molecule the concept becomes meaningless.)

p for water drops of different radii at STP

Droplet radius
1 mm
0.1 mm
p (atm)
0.0014
0.0144

1 m
1.436

10 nm
143.6

Floating objects

Cross-section a needle floating on the surface of water. Fw is the weight and Fs are surface tension
resultant forces.
When an object is placed on a liquid, its weight Fw depresses the surface, and is balanced by the
surface tension forces on either side Fs, which are each parallel to the water's surface at the points
where it contacts the object. Notice that the horizontal components of the two Fs arrows point in
opposite directions, so they cancel each other, but the vertical components point in the same direction
and therefore add up to balance Fw. The object's surface must not be wettable for this to happen, as
well as the weight should be lower than the surface tension can hold.