How ambient conditions affect the Leidenfrost temperature

By sufficiently heating a solid, a sessile drop can be prevented from contacting the surface by floating on its own vapour. While certain aspects of the dynamics of this so-called Leidenfrost effect are understood, it is still unclear why a minimum temperature (the Leidenfrost temperature T_L) is required before the effect manifests itself, what properties affect this temperature, and what physical principles govern it. Here we investigate the dependence of the Leidenfrost temperature on the ambient conditions: first, by increasing (decreasing) the ambient pressure, we find an increase (decrease) in T_L. We propose a rescaling of the temperature which allows us to collapse the curves for various organic liquids and water onto a single master curve, which yields a powerful tool to predict T_L. Secondly, increasing the ambient temperature stabilizes meta-stable, levitating drops at increasingly lower temperatures below T_L. This observation reveals the importance of thermal Marangoni flow in describing the Leidenfrost effect accurately. Our results shed new light on the mechanisms playing a role in the Leidenfrost effect and may help to eventually predict the Leidenfrost temperature and achieve complete understanding of the phenomenon, however, many questions still remain open.