Room temperature water Leidenfrost droplets

Franck Celestini (1) , Thomas Frisch (2) , Yves Pomeau (3)

1 LPMC - Laboratoire de physique de la matière condensée
2 INLN - Institut Non Linéaire de Nice Sophia-Antipolis
3 Department of Mathematics [University of Arizona]

We experimentally investigate the Leidenfrost effect at pressures ranging from $1$ to $0.05$ atmospheric pressure. As a direct consequence of the Clausius-Clapeyron phase diagram of water, the droplet temperature can be at ambient temperature in a non-sophisticated lab environment. Furthermore, the lifetime of the Leidenfrost droplet is significantly increased in this low pressure environment. The temperature and pressure dependance of the evaporation rate are successfully tested against a recently proposed model. These results may pave a way to reach efficient Leidenfrost micro-fluidic and milli-fluidic applications.

Domaines: Matière Molle [cond-mat.soft]

Franck Celestini, Thomas Frisch, Yves Pomeau. Room temperature water Leidenfrost droplets. Soft Matter, 2013, accepted for publication. ⟨hal-00850168⟩