Influence of contact angle on slow evaporation in two-dimensional porous media

Abstract

We study numerically the influence of contact angle on slow evaporation in two-dimensional model porous media. For sufficiently low contact angles, the drying pattern is fractal and can be predicted by a simple model combining the invasion percolation model with the computation of the diffusive transport in the gas phase. The overall drying time is minimum in this regime and is independent of contact angle over a large range of contact angles up to the beginning of a transition zone. As the contact angle increases in the transition region, the cooperative smoothing mechanisms of the interface become important and the width of the liquid gas interface fingers that form during the evaporation process increases. The mean overall drying time increases in the transition region up to an upper bound which is reached at a critical contact angle Θ_c. The increase in the drying time in the transition region is explained in relation with the diffusional screening phenomenon associated with the Laplace equation governing the vapor transport in the gas phase. Above Θ_c the drying pattern is character- ized by a flat traveling front and the mean overall drying time becomes independent of the contact angle. Drying time fluctuations are studied and are found to be important below Θ_c, i.e., when the pattern is fractal. The fluctuations are of the same order of magnitude regardless of the value of contact angle in this range. The fluctuations are found to die out abruptly at Θ_c as the liquid gas interface becomes a flat front.