Evaporation of tiny water aggregation on solid surfaces with different wetting properties.
The evaporation of a tiny amount of water on the solid surface with different wettabilities has been studied by molecular dynamics simulations. From nonequilibrium MD simulations, we found that, as the surface changed from hydrophobic to hydrophilic, the evaporation speed did not show a monotonic decrease as intuitively expected, but increased first, and then decreased after it reached a maximum value. The analysis of the simulation trajectory and calculation of the surface water interaction illustrate that the competition between the number of water molecules on the water-gas surface from where the water molecules can evaporate and the potential barrier to prevent those water molecules from evaporating results in the unexpected behavior of the evaporation. This finding is helpful in understanding the evaporation on biological surfaces, designing artificial surfaces of ultrafast water evaporating, or preserving water in soil.
Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 800-204, Shanghai, 201800, China.
Shen
S
Wang
Yusong
Y
Tu
Rongzheng
R
Wan
Haiping
H
Fang
D008968:Molecular Conformation; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D013696:Temperature; D013816:Thermodynamics; D014835:Volatilization; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry*; D017155:Wettability
D014867:Water