On evaporation of sessile drops with moving contact lines

Abstract

We consider theoretically, computationally and experimentally spontaneous evaporation of water and isopropanol drops on smooth silicon wafers. In contrast to a number of previous works, the solid surface we consider is smooth and therefore the droplets' evolution proceeds without contact line pinning. We develop a theoretical model for evaporation of pure liquid drops that includes Marangoni forces due to the thermal gradients produced by non-uniform evaporation, and heat conduction effects in both liquid and solid phases. The key ingredient in this model is the evaporative flux. We consider two commonly used models: one based on the assumption that the evaporation is limited by the processes originating in the gas (vapour diffusion-limited evaporation), and the other one which assumes that the processes in the liquid are limiting. Our theoretical model allows for implementing evaporative fluxes resulting from both approaches. The required parameters are obtained from physical experiments. We then carry out fully nonlinear time-dependent simulations and compare the results with the experimental ones. Finally, we discuss how the simulation results can be used to predict which of the two theoretical models is appropriate for a particular physical experiment.