Thin-liquid-film evaporation at contact line

When a liquid wets a solid wall, the extended meniscus near the contact line may be divided into three regions: a nonevaporating region, where the liquid is adsorbed on the wall; a transition region or thin-film region, where effects of long-range molecular forces (disjoining pressure) are felt; and an intrinsic meniscus region, where capillary forces dominate. The thin liquid film, with thickness from nanometers up to micrometers, covering the transition region and part of intrinsic meniscus, is gaining interest due to its high heat transfer rates. In this paper, a review was made of the researches on thin-liquid-film evaporation. The major characteristics of thin film, thin-film modeling based on continuum theory, simulations based on molecular dynamics, and thin-film profile and temperature measurements were summarized. © 2009 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH.