Rapid evaporation at the superheat limit of methanol, ethanol, butanol and n-heptane on platinum films supported by low-stress SiN membranes

Published

June 7, 2016

Author(s)

Eric J. Ching, C. T. Avedisian, Richard E. Cavicchi, Do H. Chung, Jeff Rah, Michael J. Carrier

Abstract

The bubble nucleation temperatures of several organic liquids (methanol, ethanol, butanol,n-heptane) on stress-minimized platinum (Pt) films supported by SiN membranes is examined by pulse-heating the membranes for times ranging from 1 υs to 10 υs. The results show that the nucleation temperatures increase as the heating rates of the Pt films increase. Measured nucleation temperatures approach predicted superheat limits for the smallest pulse times which correspond to heating rates over 108 K/s, while nucleation temperatures are significantly lower for the longest pulse times. The microheater membranes were found to be robust for millions of pulse cycles, which suggests their potential in applications for moving fluids on the microscale and for more fundamental studies of phase transitions of metastable liquids.

Citation

International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

Volume

101

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

DOI Link

Keywords

Homogeneous nucleation, Boiling, Superheat limit, Bubble nucleation, Bubbles, Pulse heating

Citation

Ching, E. , Avedisian, C. , Cavicchi, R. , Chung, D. , Rah, J. and Carrier, M. (2016), Rapid evaporation at the superheat limit of methanol, ethanol, butanol and n-heptane on platinum films supported by low-stress SiN membranes, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, [online], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2016.04.008 (Accessed October 14, 2025)