{
  "abstract": "Understanding how water wets graphene is critical for predicting and controlling its behaviour in nanofluidic, sensing, and energy applications. A key measure of wetting is the contact angle made by a liquid droplet against the surface, yet experimental measurements for graphene span a wide range, with no consensus for free-standing graphene. Here, we use a machine learning potential with ab initio accuracy to provide an atomistic first-principles prediction for this unsolved problem, finding a weakly hydrophilic contact angle of 72.1 ± 1.5°. More importantly, we unveil that graphene's wetting properties are highly sensitive to mechanical strain: tensile strain makes graphene significantly less hydrophilic, while compressive strain induces coherent ripples around the droplet, resulting in pronounced anisotropic wetting and contact angle hysteresis. We show that there is a strong coupling between the three-phase contact line and the intrinsic thermal ripples of free-standing graphene, which contributes to this strain sensitivity. Our results demonstrate that the wettability of 2D membranes is governed not only by their chemistry but also by their dynamic morphology, introducing a new class of wetting behaviour unique to atomically thin materials that offers an additional explanation for variability in experimental measurements. These findings reveal that mechanical strain may be a practical route to controlling wetting in 2D nanomaterials-based technologies, with promising consequences for nanofluidic and nano-filtration applications.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Cambridge Cambridge, CB3 0HE UK cs2121@cam.ac.uk.",
    "Lennard-Jones Centre, University of Cambridge Trinity Ln Cambridge CB2 1TN UK.",
    "Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge Lensfield Road Cambridge CB2 1EW UK.",
    "Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University Cambridge MA USA.",
    "Microsoft Research AI for Science Cambridge CB1 2FB UK."
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 6,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Darren Wayne Lim",
      "orcid": "0009-0006-4847-9577"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2,
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Xavier R Advincula",
      "orcid": "0009-0001-5343-0456"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "William C Witt",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-1578-1888"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Angelos Michaelides",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-9169-169X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        4
      ],
      "name": "Fabian L Thiemann",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-2951-6740"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Christoph Schran",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-4595-5073"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a01pejhhskwkc.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1039/d6sc05377g",
  "fulltext_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13716132",
  "id": "a01pejhhskwkc",
  "issns": [
    "2041-6520",
    "2041-6539"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42953457",
  "language": "eng",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
      "Chemistry"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2505|Graphene research and applications"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7126059335",
  "pdf_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13716132?pdf=render",
  "pmcid": "PMC13716132",
  "pmid": "42953457",
  "published": "2026-10-20",
  "publisher": "Royal Society of Chemistry",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a01pejhhskwkc.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-31T00:20:41Z",
      "native_id": "MED:42953457",
      "source": "europepmc",
      "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42953457"
    },
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-01T12:23:11Z",
      "native_id": "PMC13716132",
      "source": "pmc",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1039/d6sc05377g"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "chemistry",
      "origin": "openalex:2505|Graphene research and applications",
      "subfield": "materials-polymers"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Strain-dependent wetting of graphene.",
  "title_text": "Strain-dependent wetting of graphene.",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-01T12:23:11Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a01pejhhskwkc",
  "venue": "Chemical science",
  "versions": []
}