Acquiring
rapid and efficient boiling processes has been the focus
of industry as they have the potential to improve the energy efficiency
and reduce the carbon emissions of production processes. Here, we
report nanoscale thin-film boiling on different heterogeneous surfaces.
Through nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulation, we captured
the triple-phase interface details, visualized the bubble nucleation,
and recorded the internal fluid flow and thermal characteristics.
It is found that nanoscale thin-film boiling without the occurrence
of bubble nucleation shows excellent heat and mass transfer performance,
which differs from macroscale boiling. In general, rough structures
advance the onset time of stable boiling and improve the efficiency.
The heat transfer coefficient and heat flux on a rough hydrophilic
surface respectively reach to 7.43 × 104 kW/(m2·K) and 1.3 × 106 kW/m2 at
a surface temperature of 500 K, which are 100-fold higher than those
of micrometer-scale thin-film boiling. However, due to the resultant
vapor film trapped between the liquid and the surface, the rough hydrophobic
surface leads to heat transfer deterioration instead. It is revealed
that the underlying mechanism of regulatory effects resulting from
surface physicochemical properties is originated from the variation
of interfacial thermal resistance. It is available to reduce the overall
interfacial resistance and further improve the heat and mass transfer
efficiency through increasing surface roughness, enhancing surface
wettability, and increasing the area proportion of the hydrophilic
region. This work provides guidelines to achieve rapid and efficient
thin-liquid-film boiling and serves as a reference for the optimized
design of surfaces utilized for high-heat flux removal through vaporization
processes.