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Self-Organization of Microscale Condensate for Delayed Flooding of Nanostructured Superhydrophobic Surfaces
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Self-Organization of Microscale Condensate for Delayed Flooding of Nanostructured Superhydrophobic Surfaces

Emre Oelceroglu and Matthew McCarthy
ACS applied materials & interfaces, v 8(8), pp 5729-5736
02 Mar 2016
PMID: 26855239

Abstract

Materials Science Materials Science, Multidisciplinary Nanoscience & Nanotechnology Science & Technology Science & Technology - Other Topics Technology
Superhydrophobic surfaces enhance condensation by inhibiting the formation of an insulating liquid layer. While this produces efficient heat transfer at low super saturations, superhydrophobicity has been shown to break down at increased supersaturations. As heat transfer increases, the random distribution and high density of nucleation sites produces pinned droplets, which lead to uncontrollable flooding. In this work, engineered variations in wettability are used to promote the self-Organization of microscale droplets, which is shown to effectively delay flooding. Virus-templated superhydrophobic surfaces are patterned with an array of superhydrophilic islands designed to minimize surface adhesion while promoting spatial order. By use electron microscopy, the surfaces are optimized and characterized during condensation. Mixed wettability imparts spatial order not only through preferential nucleation but more importantly through the self-organization of coalescing droplets at high supersaturations. The self-organization of microscale droplets (diameters of <25 mu m> is shown to effectively delay flooding and govern the global wetting behavior of larger droplets (diameters of >1 mm) on the surface. As heat transfer increases, the surfaces transition from jumping-mode to shedding-mode removal with no flooding. This dernonstrates the ability to engineer surfaces to resist flooding and can act as the basis for developing robust superhydrophobic surfaces for condensation applications. of optical and

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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#6 Clean Water and Sanitation

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Web of Science research areas
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
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