Electrically Manipulated Vapor Condensation on the Dimpled Surface: Insights from Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Random vapor nucleation leads to flooding condensation with degraded heat-transfer efficiency. Since an external electric field has a significant effect on manipulating droplets' motion, it is possible to be one of the effective methods to hinder flooding phenomena and improve the heat-transfer rate by applying the external electric field during condensation. However, the motion of nanodroplets is more sensitive to the electric field owing to the scale effect on the nanoscale. The effect of the electric field on growth has not explicitly been comprehended. This work studied the condensation processes on a nanodimpled surface under an electric field with various strengths and directions. The results showed that condensed droplets' growth under the electric field depends on the competition between the electric field force and solid-liquid interactions. Increased vertical electric field strength, the higher torsion by the electric field hindered the motion of vapor, decreased the collision frequency for water molecules with the cooled surface, and elongated the cluster when the electric field force dominates, thus deteriorating the condensation performance. While applying the horizontal electric field, the greater electric field strength leads to better condensation performance by the larger contacting area for heat exchange. A wetting transition induced by the electric field was observed when the electric field strength increased to a certain extent (E > 5.2 × 10⁸ V/m in this study). When the V-shaped surface replaced the dimpled surface as the condensed substrate, the same wetting transition phenomena occurred under a more significant horizontal electric field strength, showing that this method is universal. Besides, different electric field frequencies influenced both the growth and the nucleation, thus exhibiting various condensation performances.