Wetting and Contact Angles of Complex Coacervates

Complex coacervates continue to be promising materials for a wide variety of applications, including encapsulation and bio-inspired adhesives. Despite the desire to exploit their ultralow interfacial tension and high wettability on solid surfaces, the interfacial behavior of complex coacervates remains relatively unexplored from both experiments and theory, particularly at the coacervate-solid interface. Here, we present the wetting behavior of coacervates using a mean-field theory. We focus on the effect of salt, polyelectrolyte-surface affinity, and electrowetting on the surface phase diagrams (wetting transitions) and prediction of contact angles.