Microdroplet evaporation in closed digital microfluidic biochips

Abstract

In this paper, microdroplet evaporation in the closed digital microfluidic systems is studied for hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces. The contact angle and contact radius are measured by an enhanced automated polynomial fitting approach. It is observed that the contact angle for both hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces remains constant during the evaporation process. However, a higher evaporation rate is observed for hydrophilic droplets compared to the hydrophobic droplets. Since no contact line pinning is observed, first, an analytical model based on the uniform vapor mass flux along the liquid–vapor interface is proposed. Interestingly, it is observed that in the hydrophobic case, the analytical model gives a higher evaporation rate, whereas for the hydrophilic case, the analytical model gives a lower evaporation rate. The discrepancy between the results of the analytical modeling and the experimental values is hypothesized to be due the constant flux assumption. To verify the hypothesis, a finite volume-based numerical model is developed to find the local flux along the liquid–vapor interface. The numerical modeling results confirm that for hydrophilic droplets, the evaporation flux increases very close to the three-phase contact line. In the case of the hydrophobic droplets, on the other hand, the flux decreases close to the contact line due to vapor saturation; as a result the uniform flux assumption overestimates the mass loss.