Leidenfrost drops on micro/nanostructured surfaces

In the Leidenfrost state, the liquid drop is levitated above a hot solid surface by a vapor layer generated via evaporation from the drop. The vapor layer thermally insulates the drop from the heating surface, causing deteriorated heat transfer in a myriad of important engineering applications. Thus, it is highly desirable to suppress the Leidenfrost effect and elevate the Leidenfrost temperature. This paper presents a comprehensive review of recent literature concerning the Leidenfrost drops on micro/nanostructured surfaces with an emphasis on the enhancement of the Leidenfrost temperature. The basic physical processes of the Leidenfrost effect and the key characteristics of the Leidenfrost drops were first intro- duced. Then, the major findings of the influence of various micro/nanoscale surface structures on the Leidenfrost temperature were presented in detail, and the underlying enhancement mechanism for each specific surface topology was also discussed. It was concluded that multiscale hierarchical surfaces hold the best promise to significantly boost the Leidenfrost temperature by combin- ing the advantages of both micro- and nanoscale structures.

Evaporation Characteristics and Morphological Evolutions of Fuel Droplets After Hitting Different Wettability Surfaces

To solve the wall-wetting problem in internal combustion engines,the physical and chemical etching methods are used to prepare different wettability surfaces with various microstructures.The evaporation characteristics and morphological evolution processes of diesel and n-butanol droplets after hitting the various surfaces are investigated.The results show that the surface microstructures increase the surface roughness(Ra),enhancing the oleophilic property of the oleophilic surfaces.Compared with n-butanol droplets,the same surface shows stronger oleophobicity to diesel droplets.When a droplet hits an oleophilic property surface with a lower temperature,the stronger the oleophilicity,the shorter the evaporation time.For oleophilic surfaces,larger Ra leads to a higher Leidenfrost temperature(TLeid).The low TLeid caused by enhanced oleophobicity,dense microstructures and increased convex dome height facilitates droplet rebound and promotes the evaporation of the wall-impinging droplets into the cylinder.The evaporation rate of the droplets is not only related to the characteristics of the solid surfaces and the fuel droplets but also affected by the heat transfer rate to the droplets in different boiling regimes.The spreading diameter of a droplet on an oleophobic surface varies significantly less with time than that on an oleophilic surface under the same surface temperature.