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Tadashi Kajiya
Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany
Water condensation on a solid surface has diverse applications such as heat transfer and water supply by
dew or fog harvesting. Enhancement of mass and heat transfer via condensation enables considerable savings in energy and natural resources. To design a surface for efficient water condensation, one of the potential approaches will be the use of a Liquid-Impregnated Surface (LIS). It consists of a nano/micro-textured surface infused with a non-volatile lubricant.
In this talk, we report the 3D observation of condensing water drops on a model LIS surface.
In order to obtain a precise shape and position of micrometer-sized drops, optical imaging was realized using a laser scanning confocal microscope (LSCM). We found that the growth of water drops on LIS is largely influenced by the structure geometry and wetting property of the lubricated solid surface. In particular, on LIS made with hydrophobic micro-pillars, the drops exhibit different regimes : nucleating on a lubricant surface, aligning between pillars, and finally floating up to a pillars’ top faces. Our results provide fundamental concepts how these solid/liquid hybrid surfaces can be applied for efficient water condensation.
[1] S. Anand et al. ACS Nano 6, 10122-10129 (2012).
[2] T. Kajiya et al. Scientific Reports 6, 23687 (2016)