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Solutal and Gravitational Effects during Binary Mixture Droplets Evaporation

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Abstract

For small droplets undergoing phase change, gravity is generally considered negligible. In the case of binary droplets evaporation, convective flows can be induced due to various mechanisms, such as continuity, buoyancy and/or selective evaporation of one of the components. Convection can also be induced by surface tension gradients resulting from concentration variations along the interface. This study presents experimental results of evaporation for binary mixture droplets. We concurrently investigate sessile and pendant droplets to assess gravity’s impact on binary droplet evaporation. We examine compositions including, pure butanol, pure methanol, pure water, and 50% per volume mixtures of water-butanol and water-methanol, evaporating in a controlled atmosphere. In the case of water-butanol mixtures, the drops contact line ‘depins’ during the evaporation process whereas the case of water-methanol mixture, the contact line of the drops remains pinned most of the lifetimes. The analysis of the evaporation dynamics reveals differences in the evaporation of these two mixtures and the effect of orientation (gravity). For water-butanol mixtures the evaporation occurs in four stages linked to preferential evaporation of the more volatile component and the ensuing surface tension gradients. In the case of water-methanol mixtures, contact lines tend to be pinned during most of the lifetimes of drops. The evaporation rate of the mixture is found to be between the ones of the pure components, i.e. water and methanol. The case of sessile drops exhibits a slight enhancement in evaporation rate in the case of the sessile configuration compared to the pendant one for pure water and mixture cases, which is explained by density differences and buoyancy driven flows. Solutal Marangoni flows in the case of water-methanol mixtures are deemed weaker compared to water-butanol ones. The use of the two mixtures allowed to have a good comparison between two cases where solutal-Marangoni effect can be strong (water-butanol) and weak (water- methanol) influence. The densities of the two organic liquids also highlighted gravitational effect due to the large difference in vapor densities.

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Acknowledgements

XM would like to acknowledge the support of Beijing Natural Science Foundation, Number 3244043, and Chinese National Key Research and Development Program Project, Number 2022YFB2602002; KS would like to acknowledge the support of the European Space Agency (ESA), France, through grant Convection and Interfacial Mass Exchange (EVAPORATION) ESA Contract Number 4000129506/20/NL/PG; RB & KS would like to acknowledge the support of the ENS Paris-Saclay (France) through project “Materials and droplets interactions for healthcare” BOOSTER 2022.

Funding

Funding from Beijing Natural Science Foundation 2024, Number 3244043, received by Xiaoyan Ma; Funding from European Space Agency (ESA), France, through grant Convection and Interfacial Mass Exchange (EVAPORATION) ESA, Contract Number 4000129506/20/NL/PG, received by Khellil Sefiane; Funding from ENS Paris-Saclay (France) through project “Materials and droplets interactions for healthcare” BOOSTER 2022, received by Rachid Bennacer & Khellil Sefiane; Funding from Chinese National Key Research and Development Program Project, Number 2022YFB2602002, received by Xiaoyan Ma.

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X. MA contributed to the write-up, data analysis, revisions; K. SEFIANE supervised the experiments, analyzed the data, write-up and revisions; R. BENNACER analyzed the data, led the write-up of the paper and revisions;X. Lapert contributed to experiment performence, and data analysis;F. Bakir contributed to data analysis and the revision of the paper.

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Correspondence to Xiaoyan Ma or Khellil Sefiane.

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Ma, X., Sefiane, K., Bennacer, R. et al. Solutal and Gravitational Effects during Binary Mixture Droplets Evaporation. Microgravity Sci. Technol. 36, 17 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12217-024-10105-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12217-024-10105-z

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