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Directional transport of high-temperature Janus droplets mediated by structural topography

Nature Physics volume 12, pages 606–612 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Directed motion of liquid droplets is of considerable importance in various water and thermal management technologies. Although various methods to generate such motion have been developed at low temperature, they become rather ineffective at high temperature, where the droplet transits to a Leidenfrost state. In this state, it becomes challenging to control and direct the motion of the highly mobile droplets towards specific locations on the surface without compromising the effective heat transfer. Here we report that the wetting symmetry of a droplet can be broken at high temperature by creating two concurrent thermal states (Leidenfrost and contact-boiling) on a topographically patterned surface, thus engendering a preferential motion of a droplet towards the region with a higher heat transfer coefficient. The fundamental understanding and the ability to control the droplet dynamics at high temperature have promising applications in various systems requiring high thermal efficiency, operational security and fidelity.

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Figure 1: Characterization of the non-uniform surface and wetting property.
Figure 2: Droplet dynamics at high temperature.
Figure 3: Phase diagram.
Figure 4: Dependence of Leidenfrost point on structural topography.
Figure 5: Directional droplet motion on a tilted surface.
Figure 6: Controlling droplet vectoring and confinement by tailoring the structural topography and substrate temperature.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the RGC Grants (No. 11213414, No. 11213915 and No. CityU9/CRF/13G), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51475401 and No. 51276152) to Z.W. and ITF/324/14 to S.Y.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China

    Jing Li, Yahua Liu, Chonglei Hao, Minfei Li & Zuankai Wang

  2. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong 999077, China

    Youmin Hou & Shuhuai Yao

  3. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015, USA

    Manoj K. Chaudhury

  4. Shenzhen Research Institute of City University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen 518057, China

    Zuankai Wang

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  1. Jing Li
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Contributions

Z.W. conceived the research; J.L. and Z.W. designed the experiment; S.Y. and Y.H. prepared the samples; J.L., Y.L., C.H. and M.L. carried out the experiments; J.L., M.K.C. and Z.W. analysed the data; Z.W., M.K.C., J.L. and S.Y. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Manoj K. Chaudhury, Shuhuai Yao or Zuankai Wang.

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Li, J., Hou, Y., Liu, Y. et al. Directional transport of high-temperature Janus droplets mediated by structural topography. Nature Phys 12, 606–612 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3643

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