Vapor condensation on bioinspired hierarchical nanostructured
surfaces
with hybrid wettabilities has been investigated using molecular dynamics
simulations. A series of hierarchical surfaces consisting of nanocylinder
arrays with hydrophilic top and hydrophobic nanopillar arrays are
constructed. The results manifest that the condensed nanodroplets
undergo three states in the whole water vapor condensation process,
and the total condensed atom number on surfaces increases with the
increase of nanocylinder diameter (D), which indicates
that the introduction of hydrophilic nanocylinders is conducive to
improving the condensation performance compared with that on the hydrophobic
surface patterned with homogeneous nanopillars. However, the nucleation
sites on hierarchical nanostructured surfaces are covered by the condensed
nanodroplets at the end of condensation, which suppresses the further
enhancement of condensation performance. To solve these problems,
we add a collection region close to the edge of the nanostructured
surface. It is noticed that the condensed nanodroplets can roll into
the collection regions gradually during the condensation process,
which keeps the nucleation sites on nanostructured surfaces exposed
effectively, especially for the cases of 20 Å ≤ D ≤ 40 Å. Moreover, the cluster number, the
total condensed atom number, and the condensation enhancement efficiency
on hierarchical nanostructured surfaces with collection regions at
20 Å ≤ D ≤ 40 Å are higher
obviously compared with those on surfaces without collection regions.
Our study demonstrates that the bioinspired hierarchical nanostructured
surface with the collection region is beneficial to boost the vapor
condensation performance, which can bring new insights into water
vapor condensation.
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