Thermal Instability of Evaporation

The problem of thermal instability of liquid evaporation was considered. It was shown that the steady-state temperature gradient in a stagnant liquid layer and the steady-state gradients of the temperature and concentration of the vapor of the evaporating liquid are unstable to small temperature perturbations. It was established that the spectra of the linearized heat and diffusion equations are discrete and real-valued. The applied significance of the revealed thermal mechanism of instability was discussed.