Effect of substrate surface roughness on wetting behaviour of vegetable oils

Vegetable oils are mainly used in the heat treating industry due to their environmental friendliness. In the present work the effect of surface roughness on spreading of vegetable oils on stainless steel substrates was investigated. Spreading phenomenon was digitally recorded and analyzed. All of the oils under investigation exhibited power law spreading behaviour of the type: A = ktn, where A, t, k and n represent the drop base contact area, spreading time, constant and exponent, respectively. The coconut and sunflower oils exhibited accelerated kinetics owing to their lower viscosity as compared to palm and mineral oils while peanut oil showed intermediate behaviour. Viscous regime was dominant during spreading of mineral and palm oils as compared to that of coconut oil.