An analytical model for the evaporation of multi-component spheroidal drops based on Stefan–Maxwell equations

Abstract

An analytical evaporation model for multi-component spherical and spheroidal drops, based on the analytical solution of the Stefan–Maxwell equations is proposed to study the multi-component steady diffusion in the gas phase. A comparison with the ‘classical’ approach based on the Fick’s law is reported for three families of liquid mixtures, namely alkanes, alcohols and water solutions of alcohols under a wide range of operating conditions. The local vapour fluxes of each vaporising species on the drop surface are correlated with the local Gaussian curvature. The effects of drop shape and of the modelling of constitutive equations on the evaporation rates are discussed. Comparison of the present model with experimental measurements of different compositions of tetradecane–hexadecane drops vaporising in stagnant air shows a rather satisfactory agreement.