How can we explaine the adhesion force?

[NEMS]

Hello,

How can we explain the adhesion force between two different materials, for instance Glass and honey, or glass and water. if we put a droplet of honey why it does stick more firmly than a droblet of water? what are the forces reponsible on that ?
I'm looking to atomic scale explanation if it is possible.

the attached link gives an experiment on reducing the adhesion force, but I don't have any explanation .

ww.memsuniverse.com/?p=234

I would appreciate if you can help .

Many thanks.

NEMS

 

[Andy Resnick]

We do not yet have a good theory for wetting. That is different than adhesion, BTW. And neither has anything to do with viscosity.

Wetting behavior correlates with interfacial energy- we are unable to calculate interfacial energies from first principles, but there are some general chemical and physical principles we can use to manipulate the interfacial energy (chemical composition, temperature, etc).