Hydratization of the PDMS backbone during water immersion test

This paper deals with the influence of water immersion on the hydrophobicity loss process of different silicone rubbers. The advancing and receding angles (AA and RA) of thin rubber plates were measured. The presented results show that water immersion had only a small effect on the wettability (AA) of the silicone rubbers, but dramatically increased their surface retention properties (RA). In some cases step-like time dependent relations of the RA were found and it seems possible to explain the increase in surface water retention by assuming a hydratization of the polydimethylsiloxane backbone. On the other hand, the small increase in the AA with immersion time can appear to be due to a weakly induced polarization of the methyl groups