Leidenfrost droplet trampolining.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Graeber G
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7979863 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:When a liquid droplet is placed on a very hot solid, it levitates on its own vapor layer, a phenomenon called the Leidenfrost effect. Although the mechanisms governing the droplet's levitation have been explored, not much is known about the fate of the Leidenfrost droplet. Here we report on the final stages of evaporation of Leidenfrost droplets. While initially small droplets tend to take off, unexpectedly, the initially large ones explode with a crack sound. We interpret these in the context of unavoidable droplet contaminants, which accumulate at the droplet-air interface, resulting in reduced evaporation rate, and contact with the substrate. We validate this hypothesis by introducing controlled amounts of microparticles and reveal a universal 1/3-scaling law for the dimensionless explosion radius versus contaminant fraction. Our findings open up new opportunities for controlling the duration and rate of Leidenfrost heat transfer and propulsion by tuning the droplet's size and contamination.
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Project description:Superhydrophobicity (observed at room temperature) and Leidenfrost phenomenon (observed on very hot solids) are classical examples of nonwetting surfaces. It was found that combining the two effects by heating water-repellent materials leads to a marked yet unexplained decrease of the Leidenfrost temperature of water. We discuss here how heat enhances superhydrophobicity by favoring a "cold Leidenfrost regime" where water adhesion becomes nonmeasurable even at moderate substrate temperature. Heat is found to induce contradictory effects (sticking due to vapor condensation, and lift due to the spreading of vapor patches), which is eventually shown to be controllable by the solid surface texture. The transition to the levitating Leidenfrost regime is observed to be continuous as a function of temperature, contrasting with the transition on common solids.
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Project description:Friction is a major inhibitor in almost every mechanical system. Enlightened by the Leidenfrost effect - a droplet can be levitated by its own vapor layer on a sufficiently hot surface - we demonstrate for the first time that a small cart can also be levitated by Leidenfrost vapor. The levitated cart can carry certain amount of load and move frictionlessly over the hot surface. The maximum load that the cart can carry is experimentally tested over a range of surface temperatures. We show that the levitated cart can be propelled not only by gravitational force over a slanted flat surface, but also self-propelled over a ratchet shaped horizontal surface. In the end, we experimentally tested water consumption rate for sustaining the levitated cart, and compared the results to theoretical calculations. If perfected, this frictionless Leidenfrost cart could be used in numerous engineering applications where relative motion exists between surfaces.
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Project description:The development of green synthesis methods for supported noble metal catalysts remains important challenges to improve their sustainability. Here we first synthesized carbon-supported Pd catalysts in a green Leidenfrost droplet reactor without reducing agents, high-temperature calcination and reduction procedures. When the aqueous solution containing Pd nitrate precursor, carbon support, and water is dripped on a hot plate, vapor layer is formed between a solution droplet and hot surface, which allow the solution droplet to be levitated on the hot surface (Leidenfrost phenomena). Subsequently, Pd nanoparticles can be prepared without reducing agents in a weakly basic droplet reactor created by the Leidenfrost phenomena, and then the as-prepared Pd nanoparticles are loaded on carbon supports during boiling down the droplet on hot surface. Compared to conventional incipient wetness and chemical synthetic methods, the Leidenfrost droplet reactor does not need energy-consuming, time-consuming, and environmentally unfriendly procedures, which leads to much shorter synthesis time, lower carbon dioxide emission, and more ecofriendly process in comparison with conventional synthesis methods. Moreover, the catalysts synthesized in the Leidenfrost droplet reactor provided much better catalytic activity for room-temperature formic acid decomposition than those prepared by the incipient wetness method.
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Project description:Above a critical temperature known as the Leidenfrost point (LFP), a heated surface can suspend a liquid droplet above a film of its own vapor. The insulating vapor film can be highly detrimental in metallurgical quenching and thermal control of electronic devices, but may also be harnessed to reduce drag and generate power. Manipulation of the LFP has occurred mostly through experiment, giving rise to a variety of semiempirical models that account for the Rayleigh-Taylor instability, nucleation rates, and superheat limits. However, formulating a truly comprehensive model has been difficult given that the LFP varies dramatically for different fluids and is affected by system pressure, surface roughness, and liquid wettability. Here, we investigate the vapor film instability for small length scales that ultimately sets the collapse condition at the Leidenfrost point. From a linear stability analysis, it is shown that the main film-stabilizing mechanisms are the liquid-vapor surface tension-driven transport of vapor mass and the evaporation at the liquid-vapor interface. Meanwhile, van der Waals interaction between the bulk liquid and the solid substrate across the vapor phase drives film collapse. This physical insight into vapor film dynamics allows us to derive an ab initio, mathematical expression for the Leidenfrost point of a fluid. The expression captures the experimental data on the LFP for different fluids under various surface wettabilities and ambient pressures. For fluids that wet the surface (small intrinsic contact angle), the expression can be simplified to a single, dimensionless number that encapsulates the wetting instability governing the LFP.
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Project description:The Leidenfrost phenomenon of liquid droplets levitating and dancing when placed upon a hot plate due to propulsion of evaporative vapor has been extended to many self-propelled circumstances. However, such self-propelled Leidenfrost devices commonly need a high temperature for evaporation and a structured solid substrate for directional movements. Here we observed a "cold Leidenfrost phenomenon" when placing a dry ice device on the surface of room temperature water, based on which we developed a controllable self-propelled dry ice hovercraft. Due to the sublimated vapor, the hovercraft could float on water and move in a programmable manner through designed structures. As demonstrations, we showed that the hovercraft could be used as a cargo ship or a petroleum contamination collector without consuming external power. This phenomenon enables a novel way to utilize programmable self-propelled devices on top of room temperature water, holding great potential for applications in energy, chemical engineering and biology.
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Project description:The gasification of multicomponent fuel drops is relevant in various energy-related technologies. An interesting phenomenon associated with this process is the self-induced explosion of the drop, producing a multitude of smaller secondary droplets, which promotes overall fuel atomization and, consequently, improves the combustion efficiency and reduces emissions of liquid-fueled engines. Here, we study a unique explosive gasification process of a tricomponent droplet consisting of water, ethanol, and oil ("ouzo"), by high-speed monitoring of the entire gasification event taking place in the well-controlled, levitated Leidenfrost state over a superheated plate. It is observed that the preferential evaporation of the most volatile component, ethanol, triggers nucleation of the oil microdroplets/nanodroplets in the remaining drop, which, consequently, becomes an opaque oil-in-water microemulsion. The tiny oil droplets subsequently coalesce into a large one, which, in turn, wraps around the remnant water. Because of the encapsulating oil layer, the droplet can no longer produce enough vapor for its levitation, and, thus, falls and contacts the superheated surface. The direct thermal contact leads to vapor bubble formation inside the drop and consequently drop explosion in the final stage.
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Project description:In this work, we explored self-propulsion of a Leidenfrost drop between non-parallel structures. A theoretical model was first developed to determine conditions for liquid drops to start moving away from the corner of two non-parallel plates. These conditions were then simplified for the case of a Leidenfrost drop. Furthermore, ejection speeds and travel distances of Leidenfrost drops were derived using a scaling law. Subsequently, the theoretical models were validated by experiments. Finally, three new devices have been developed to manipulate Leidenfrost drops in different ways.
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Project description:Green nanotechnology focuses on the development of new and sustainable methods of creating nanoparticles, their localized assembly and integration into useful systems and devices in a cost-effective, simple and eco-friendly manner. Here we present our experimental findings on the use of the Leidenfrost drop as an overheated and charged green chemical reactor. Employing a droplet of aqueous solution on hot substrates, this method is capable of fabricating nanoparticles, creating nanoscale coatings on complex objects and designing porous metal in suspension and foam form, all in a levitated Leidenfrost drop. As examples of the potential applications of the Leidenfrost drop, fabrication of nanoporous black gold as a plasmonic wideband superabsorber, and synthesis of superhydrophilic and thermal resistive metal-polymer hybrid foams are demonstrated. We believe that the presented nanofabrication method may be a promising strategy towards the sustainable production of functional nanomaterials.
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Project description:The development of contactless sample manipulation for microfluidic purposes has attracted significant attention within the physicochemical fields. Most existing studies focus on the interactions of unheated liquid substrates and on heated/unheated solid substrates. Therefore, the dynamics of droplets on heated liquid pools have yet to be explored. Here, we present an experimental investigation on the levitated and self-propelled droplets on a heated pool. We aim to identify the effect of the pool temperature and the thermophysical properties of droplets on the dynamics of a self-propelled Leidenfrost droplet on a heated pool. The motion of droplets after levitation on the heated pool is visualized. To elucidate the self-propulsion of Leidenfrost droplets, we quantify the thickness of the vapour film between the approaching droplet and the pool surface. Our experimental results show a quantitative agreement with the simple model prediction for self-propelled Leidenfrost droplets. Our results provide deeper physical insights into the dynamics of Leidenfrost droplets on a heated pool for contactless and contamination-free sample manipulation.
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