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Title: Tuning Superhydrophobic Nanostructures To Enhance Jumping-Droplet Condensation

Journal Article · · ACS Nano

It was recently discovered that condensation growing on a nanostructured superhydrophobic surface can spontaneously jump off the surface, triggered by naturally occurring coalescence events. Many reports have observed that droplets must grow to a size of order 10 μm before jumping is enabled upon coalescence; however, it remains unknown how the critical jumping size relates to the topography of the underlying nanostructure. Here, we characterize the dynamic behavior of condensation growing on six different superhydrophobic nanostructures, where the topography of the nanopillars was systematically varied. The critical jumping diameter was observed to be highly dependent upon the height, diameter, and pitch of the nanopillars: tall and slender nanopillars promoted 2 μm jumping droplets while short and stout nanopillars increased the critical size to over 20 μm. The topology of each surface is successfully correlated to the critical jumping diameter by constructing an energetic model that predicts how large a nucleating embryo needs to grow before it can inflate into the air with an apparent contact angle large enough for jumping. Furthermore, by extending our model to consider any possible surface, it is revealed that properly designed nanostructures should enable nanometric jumping droplets, which would further enhance jumping droplet condensers for heat transfer, anti-fogging, and anti-frosting applications.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1394224
Journal Information:
ACS Nano, Vol. 11, Issue 8; ISSN 1936-0851
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 148 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Size distribution theory for jumping-droplet condensation journal April 2019
‘Sneezing’ plants: pathogen transport via jumping-droplet condensation journal June 2019
A Novel Icephobic Strategy: The Fabrication of Biomimetic Coupling Micropatterns of Superwetting Surface journal August 2019
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Macrotextures-induced jumping relay of condensate droplets journal March 2019
Fundamentals of icing and common strategies for designing biomimetic anti-icing surfaces journal January 2018
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Coalescence driven self-organization of growing nanodroplets around a microcap journal January 2018
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