Three stages of water microdroplet evaporation on hydrophobized surface: Comparison between steady-state theory and experiment

Abstract

Three consecutive stages of evaporation of a sessile water microdroplet are studied both theoretically and experimentally under the conditions of contact angle hysteresis. The influence of thermal effects on the dynamics of droplet evaporation is quantitatively investigated on the basis of the obtained experimental results. The features of droplet evolution are analyzed at the final stage, when both the contact angle and the radius of the droplet base decrease with time. It is shown that evaporation at this stage also occurs in a steady-state regime, but the average droplet temperature approaches the ambient temperature.