Molecular Dynamics Study of Binary Nanodroplet Evaporation on a Heated Homogeneous Substrate

JJ Zhang and HB Huang and XY Lu, LANGMUIR, 36, 3439-3451 (2020).

DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.0c00019

The evaporation mechanism of miscible binary nanodroplets from heated homogeneous surfaces was studied by molecular dynamics simulations, which has never been studied before. The binary droplets contain a hydrophilic component (type-2 particles) and a hydrophobic component (type-3 particles). It is shown that liquid-liquid interaction strength (epsilon(23)) and hydrophilic particle number fraction (phi) have great influence on the surface tension, wetting characteristics, evaporation patterns, evaporation rate, and local mass flux. It is observed that when epsilon(23) >= 1, or phi approximate to 0.5, the evaporation mode is the constant-contact-angle mode. Otherwise, it is the mixed mode. We found that the evaporation rate becomes faster when phi and epsilon(23) increase. The droplets become more hydrophilic when phi increases, which promotes heat transfer efficiency between the liquid-solid interface. Besides, a larger epsilon(23) promotes the heat transfer inside the droplet. The mass transfer to the vapor phase occurs preferentially in the vicinity of TPCL (three phase contact line) in the hydrophilic systems (theta < theta(c)), where theta(c) is the critical contact angle, while in most hydrophobic systems (theta > theta(c)), the mass flux close to the TPCL is suppressed. We found that theta(c) is an element of(102 degrees-106 degrees), which is different from the theoretical one, theta(c) = 90 degrees. The discrepancy is attributed to the existence of the adsorption layer near the TPCL.

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