Organization of microbeads in Leidenfrost Droplets

What is it about?

Leidenfrost drops are non-wetting drops standing over a hot substrate. The non-wetting property comes from the fact that the substrate is so hot that the drop evaporates fast enough to maintain a vapor film between itself and the substrate. In these drops (centimetric), we introduced micrometric beads. The beads are found to stay at the surface of the drop. In fact, it forms a monolayer. This monolayer of beads affects the evaporation of the drop.

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Why is it important?

The interest for Leidenfrost effect has notably increased during the last decade. Indeed, the levitating droplets present all the advantages of non-wetting (quasi- frictionless transport, no contact...). This paper concerns the ability of Leidenfrost drops to cover themselves with hydrophilic particles. We obtained fully covered droplet analogous to liquid marbles obtained with hydrophobic grains. Thus, our work gathers two hot topics : Leidenfrost effect and the coating of drops.