Langmuir, Vol.30, No.22, 6544-6547, 2014
Transient Volume of Evaporating Sessile Droplets: 2/3, 1/1, or Another Power Law?
The transient shape and volume of evaporating sessile droplets are critical to our understanding and prediction of deposits left over on the solid surface after droplet evaporation. The 2/3 power law of scaling, (V/V-o)(beta) = 1 t/t(f) with beta = 2/3, has been widely used. The 1/1 power law of scaling with beta = 1 was also obtained for vanishingly small contact angles. Here we show that beta significantly deviates from 2/3 and 1 when the droplet base is pinned: beta depends on both initial and transient contact angles. The 1/1 power law presents the upper limit of beta = 1, while beta = 2/3 is the lower limit if contact angles are smaller than 148 degrees. Unexpectedly, beta can be smaller than 2/3 if contact angles are larger than 148 degrees. We also present a semianalytical approximation for beta as a function of the initial contact angle.