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Abstract Drying front propagation and coupled heat and mass transfer analysis from porous media is critical for soil–water dynamics, electronics cooling, and evaporative drying. In this study, de-ionized water was evaporated from three 3D printed porous structures (with 0.41 mm, 0.41 mm, and 0.16 mm effective radii, respectively) created out of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic using stereolithography technology. The structures were immersed in water until all the pores were invaded and then placed on the top of a sensitive scale to record evaporative mass loss. A 1000 W/m2 heat flux was applied with a solar simulator to the top of each structure to accelerate evaporation. The evaporative mass losses were recorded at 15 min time intervals and plotted against time to compare evaporation rates from the three structures. The evaporation phenomena were captured with a high-speed camera from the side of the structures to observe the drying front propagation during evaporation, and a high-resolution thermal camera was used to capture images to visualize the thermal gradients during evaporation. The 3D-structure with the smallest effective pore radius (i.e., 0.16 mm) experienced the sharpest decrease in the mass loss as the water evaporated from 0.8 g to 0.1 g within 180 min. The designed pore structures influenced hydraulic linkages, and therefore, evaporation processes. A coupled heat-and-mass-transfer model modeled constant rate evaporation, and the falling rate period was modeled through the normalized evaporation rate.
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Evaporative Drying from Hydrophilic or Hydrophobic Homogeneous Porous Columns: Consequences of Wettability, Porous Structure and Hydraulic Connectivity
Evaporative drying from porous media is influenced by wettability and porous structures; altering these parameters impacts capillary effects and hydraulic connectivity, thereby achieving slower or faster evaporation. In this study, water was evaporated from a homogeneous porous column created with ~1165 glass (i.e., hydrophilic) or Teflon (i.e., hydrophobic) 2.38-mm-diameter spheres with an applied heat flux of 1000 W/m2 supplied via a solar simulator; each experiment was replicated five times and lasted seven days. This study investigates the combination of altered wettability on evaporation with an imposed heat flux to drive evaporation, while deploying X-ray imaging to measure evaporation fronts. Initial evaporation rates were faster (i.e., ~1.5 times) in glass than in Teflon. Traditionally, evaporation from porous media is categorized into three periods: constant rate, subsequent falling rate and slower rate period. Due to homogeneous porous structure and similar characteristic pore size (i.e., 0.453 mm), capillary effects were limited, resulting in an insignificant constant evaporation rate period. A sharp decrease in evaporation rate (i.e., falling rate period) was observed, followed by the slower rate period characterized by Fick’s law of diffusion. Teflon samples entered the slower rate period after 70 hours compared to 90 hours in glass, and combined with X-ray visualization, implying a lower rate of liquid island formation in the Teflon samples than the glass samples. The evaporative drying front, visualized by X-rays, propagated faster in glass with a final depth (after seven days) of ~30 mm, compared to ~24 mm in Teflon. Permeability was modeled based on the geometry [e.g., 3.163E-9 m2 (Revil, Glover, Pezard, and Zamora model), 3.287E-9 m2 (Critical Path Analysis)] and experimentally measured for both glass (9.5E-10 m2) and Teflon (8.9E-10 m2) samples. Rayleigh numbers (Ra=2380) and Nusselt (Nu=4.1) numbers were calculated for quantifying natural evaporation of water from fully saturated porous media, Bond (Bo=193E-3) and Capillary (Ca=6.203E-8) numbers were calculated and compared with previous studies.
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- PAR ID:
- 10334591
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Transport in porous media
- ISSN:
- 1573-1634
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1-28
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-022-01775-7
