In this work, we investigate the change of contact angle (CA) of a water droplet during evaporation on a Teflon AF1600 surface in the temperature range between 20 and 80 °C under standard laboratory conditions. An almost constant initial CA and a significant increase of the stabilized CA have been observed. The results reveal a temperature-dependent CA change, mainly due to water adsorption on the solid surface. Soaking experiments indicate that besides adsorption, a temperature-independent friction-like force contributes to the pinning of triple-line and therefore to the CA change. We propose an adsorption coverage parameter and a friction-like force to describe the CA change. Furthermore, we describe a reproducible process to produce smooth and homogeneous Teflon AF1600 thin films, minimizing the influence of roughness and local heterogeneity on the CA.

In the growing application field of electrowetting (EW), reliable control of the wetting behavior by an applied voltage is required over a wide temperature range. Despite the rising interest of EW, only few data are reported in the literature on the EW behavior as a function of temperature. In this paper, we investigate the quasi-static EW response on one of the most widely used hydrophobic materials, Teflon AF1600, in a temperature range from 25 to 70$$\,^{\circ }\mathrm{C}$$ ∘ C . The contact angle versus voltage is analyzed to illustrate the EW behavior. The results are in good agreement with the friction-adsorption model, which explains the contact angle (CA) hysteresis by a temperature-independent friction-like force and a temperature-dependent contribution of liquid adsorption onto a dielectric surface. The EW-CAs show a small asymmetry with respect to the polarity of the applied voltage, which might be due to the temporary and reversible charge trapping on the dielectric layer. The results underline that the different effects of the temperature-independent friction force and the temperature-dependent adsorption need to be taken into account to predict and control the CA in any EW-based application scenario. Graphical abstract

No abstract