Non-Equilibrium Gibbs’ Criterion for Completely Wetting Volatile Liquids Yannis Tsoumpas, ∗,† Sam Dehaeck, † Mariano Galvagno, ‡ Alexey Rednikov, † Heidi Ottevaere, ¶ Uwe Thiele, § and Pierre Colinet ∗,† Université Libre de Bruxelles, TIPs (Transfers, Interfaces and Processes), CP 165/67, Av. F.D. Roosevelt 50, 1050 Brussels, Belgium, Loughborough University, Department of Mathematical Sciences, LE11 3TU Loughborough, U.K, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Department of Applied Physics and Photonics (TONA-IR), Pleinlaan 2, B1050 Brussels, Belgium, Center of Nonlinear Science (CeNoS), Westfälische Wilhelms Universität Münster, Corrensstr. 2, D48149 Münster, Germany, and Institut für Theoretische Physik, Westfälische Wilhelms Universität Münster, Wilhelm Klemm Str. 9, D48149 Münster, Germany E-mail: itsoumpa@ulb.ac.be; pcolinet@ulb.ac.be Abstract During the spreading of a liquid over a solid substrate, the contact line can stay pinned at sharp edges until the contact angle exceeds a critical value. At (or sufficiently near) equilibrium, this is known as Gibbs’ criterion. Here, we show both experimentally and theoretically that for completely wetting volatile liquids there also exists a dynamically-produced critical angle for depinning, which increases with the evaporation rate. This suggests that one may introduce a simple modification of the Gibbs’ criterion for (de)pinning, that accounts for the non-equilibrium effect of evaporation. ∗ To whom correspondence should be addressed † Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) ‡ Loughborough University ¶ Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) § Münster University ‖ Münster University 1 arXiv:1410.6783v1 [physics.flu-dyn] 24 Oct 2014