Wedge wetting by electrolyte solutions.

The wetting of a charged wedgelike wall by an electrolyte solution is investigated by means of classical density functional theory. As in other studies on wedge wetting, this geometry is considered as the most simple deviation from a planar substrate, and it serves as a first step toward more complex confinements of fluids. By focusing on fluids containing ions and surface charges, features of real systems are covered that are not accessible within the vast majority of previous theoretical studies concentrating on simple fluids in contact with uncharged wedges. In particular, the filling transition of charged wedges is necessarily of first order, because wetting transitions of charged substrates are of first order and the barrier in the effective interface potential persists below the wetting transition of a planar wall; hence, critical filling transitions are not expected to occur for ionic systems. The dependence of the critical opening angle on the surface charge, as well as the dependence of the filling height, of the wedge adsorption, and of the line tension on the opening angle and on the surface charge are analyzed in detail.