Design of Continuous Transport of the Droplet by the Contact-Boiling Regime

Joule-heat-driven directional transport of liquid droplets has comprehensive engineering applications in various water and thermal management, cooling systems, and self-cleaning. Generally, the driving force for the transport of liquid droplets was always observed at an extremely high Leidenfrost temperature, which limits the potential application between liquid boiling and Leidenfrost points. In this work, we design a new strategy to directionally drive the transport of droplets by blockading the vapor cushion at a temperature much lower than the Leidenfrost point. On the surface of the microhole arrays, we observed the continuous rebound behavior of ethanol droplets at T_s = 110 °C. Employing the thermal multiphase lattice Boltzmann model, the continuous rebound behavior was reproduced, verifying that the driving force was provided by the blockaded vapor pressure in microholes. By cooperating with the Laplace pressure difference, we directionally transport ethanol and water droplets on the horizontal asymmetrical concentric microridge surface. The horizontal velocity of water is 11.25 cm/s at T_s = 180 °C, similar to the traditional ratchets at the Leidenfrost point. The design of microtextures enriches the fundamental understanding of how to drive droplets at far below the Leidenfrost point and pushes the application in nongravity-driven self-cleaning and cooling systems.