The Effect of Microdroplet Shape on the Evaporation

Many studies of microdroplet evaporation from solid surfaces were made with priority given to inkjet printing and dye painting techniques. The objective of these studies is how to evaporate a droplet quickly and uniformly. Also it is necessary to prevent evaporation of a droplet to observe cells in a droplet generated through cell-patterning. In general, an identical volume of a water droplet on hydrophobic surfaces evaporates slower than that on hydrophilic surfaces. In this study, we observe the evaporation process of a droplet on various hydrophobic surfaces and calculated the evaporation rate considering the droplet geometry such as contact angle and height. This study also proposes a new model based on the fact that evaporation mode at the edge of a droplet is different from that at the outer surface of a droplet as the contact angle changes during evaporation. Finally, we reveal the cause for the increase of evaporation flux and show that the ratio of edge evaporation to total evaporation increases with time.