Interfacial tension from the height and diameter of sessile drops and captive bubbles with an arbitrary contact angle

A method has been developed to calculate the interfacial tension of sessile drops and captive bubbles of arbitrary contact angle by measuring the drop diameter and vertical distance to the apex at arbitrary horizontal planes within the drop. The procedure works in theory for any contact angle with an accuracy on the order of 0.1%. However, practical limitations reduce the range of angles to roughly 50 degrees-180 degrees but do not restrict the range of interfacial tensions (at least 0.01 mJ/m(2) to 72.0 mJ/m(2)). The optimal strategy is to use the method at several points on a single drop and to calculate the mean and standard deviation of the resulting interfacial tensions.