Spatiotemporal infrared measurement of interface temperatures during water droplet evaporation on a nonwetting substrate

Abstract

High-fidelity experimental characterization of sessile droplet evaporation is required to understand the interdependent physical mechanisms that drive the evaporation. In particular, cooling of the interface due to release of the latent heat of evaporation, which is not accounted for in simplified vapor-diffusion-based models of droplet evaporation, may significantly suppress the evaporation rate on nonwetting substrates, which support tall droplet shapes. This suppression is counteracted by convective mass transfer from the droplet to the air. While prior numerical modeling studies have identified the importance of these mechanisms, there is no direct experimental evidence of their influence on the interfacial temperature distribution. Infrared thermography is used here to simultaneously measure the droplet volume, contact angle, and spatially resolved interface temperatures for water droplets on a nonwetting substrate. The technique is calibrated and validated to quantify the temperature measurement accuracy; a correction is employed to account for reflections from the surroundings when imaging the evaporating droplets. Spatiotemporally resolved interface temperature data, obtained via infrared thermography measurements, allow for an improved prediction of the evaporation rate and can be utilized to monitor temperature-controlled processes in droplets for various lab-on-a-chip applications.