Complete wetting

A liquid spreads macroscopically over a solid with zero macroscopic equilibrium contact angle. In the simple interfacial-energy model the threshold is ${\gamma }_{SV}-{\gamma }_{SL}={\gamma }_{LV}$, or zero spreading coefficient; positive coefficient favors a spreading film. Extrapolating a concentration-dependent liquid-vapour surface tension to this threshold assumes the other interfacial energies remain fixed and no intervening adsorption or micellization behavior changes the trend.