Competitive Electrohydrodynamic and Electrosolutal Advection Arrests Evaporation Kinetics of Droplets

This article reports the hitherto unreported phenomenon of arrested evaporation dynamics in pendant droplets because of electric field stimulus. The evaporation kinetics of pendant droplets of electrically conducting saline solutions in the presence of a transverse, alternating electric field is investigated experimentally. While the increase of field strength reduces the evaporation rate, increment in field frequency has the opposite effect. The same has been explained on the solvation kinetics of ions in polar water. Theoretical analysis reveals that change in surface tension and the diffusion-driven evaporation model cannot predict the decelerated evaporation. With the aid of particle image velocimetry, suppression of internal circulation velocity within the droplet is observed under electric field stimulus, which directly affects the evaporation rate. A mathematical scaling model is proposed to quantify the effects of electrohydrodynamic circulation and electrothermal and electrosolutal advection on the evaporation kinetics. The analysis encompasses major governing parameters, namely, the thermal and solutal Marangoni numbers, the electrohydrodynamic number, the electro-Prandtl and electro-Schmidt numbers, and their respective contributions. It has been shown that the electrothermal Marangoni effect is suppressed by the electric field, leading to deteriorated evaporation rates. Additionally, the electrosolutal Marangoni effect further suppresses the internal advection, further reducing the evaporation rate by a larger proportion. Stability analysis reveals that the electric body force retards the stable internal advection. The stability mapping also illustrates that if the field strength is high enough for the electrosolutal advection to overshadow the solutal Marangoni effect completely, it can lead to improvement in evaporation rates.