The captive bubble method is a method for measuring contact angle between a liquid and a solid, by using drop shape analysis. In this method, a bubble of air is injected beneath a solid, the surface of which is located in the liquid, instead of placing a drop on the solid as in the case of the sessile drop technique.
The method is particularly suitable for solids with high surface free energy on which liquids spread out. Hydrogels, such as those that comprise soft contact lenses, are inaccessible to the standard arrangement; so the captive bubble method is also used in such cases. A contact angle is formed on a smooth, periodically heterogeneous solid surface. Above the solid surface, a liquid drop is submerged to the solid in a fluid. The measurement of contact angles usually contributes to the measurement of the surface energy of solids in the industry. Different from other methods of measuring the contact angle, such as the sessile drop technique, the system utilized in the captive bubble method has the fluid bubble attached from below to the solid surface, such that both the liquid bubble and the solid interact with a fluid.