Wetting and evaporation of a simple sessile droplet is a very complex problem involving strongly coupled physics.

The drying of a drop of human blood exhibits coupled physical mechanisms, such as Marangoni flow, evaporation and wettability. The final stage of a whole blood drop evaporation reveals regular patterns with a good reproducibility for a healthy person. Other experiments on anaemic and hyperlipidaemic people were performed, and different patterns were revealed. The flow motion inside the blood drop is observed and analysed with the use of a digital camera: the influence of the red blood cells motion is revealed at the drop periphery as well as its consequences on the final stage of drying. The mechanisms which lead to the final pattern of the dried blood drops are presented and explained on the basis of fluid mechanics in conjunction with the principles of haematology. The blood drop evaporation process is evidenced to be driven only by Marangoni flow. The same axisymmetric pattern formation is observed, and can be forecast for different blood drop diameters. The evaporation mass flux can be predicted with a good agreement, assuming only the knowledge of the colloids mass concentration.

There has been increasing interest of late in nanofluid boiling and its use in heat transfer enhancement. This article covers recent advances in the last decade by researchers in both pool boiling and convective boiling applications, with nanofluids as the working fluid. The available data in the literature is reviewed in terms of enhancements, and degradations in the nucleate boiling heat transfer and critical heat flux. Conflicting data have been presented in the literature on the effect that nanofluids have on the boiling heat-transfer coefficient; however, almost all researchers have noted an enhancement in the critical heat flux during nanofluid boiling. Several researchers have observed nanoparticle deposition at the heater surface, which they have related back to the critical heat flux enhancement.

The present study is an experimental investigation regarding the evaporation of ethanol drops deposited onto a heated substrate in a partial wetting situation. The originality of this work is based on the simultaneous observation of the kinetics of evaporation, heat and mass transfers, the triple-line dynamic, and thermal motions inside the drop. The triple line recedes during the drop evaporation and a spontaneous development of thermal-convective instabilities driven by the evaporation are observed. These instabilities are interpreted as hydrothermal waves induced by surface tension gradient along the free surface. An infrared technique is used to investigate the temporal and spatial dynamics of the hydrothermal waves. Results reveal a non-linear evolution of the number of waves as well as several instability regimes. A complete description of the drop evaporation with the evidence of several phases is provided. The influence of geometrical and thermal parameters has been analyzed and raised scaling laws on hydrodynamic and energy transport. The drop evaporation appears to be characterized by a constant drop Nusselt number of a value 1.7 during all the process which highlights both the importance of conduction and convection in the energy transport in an evaporating drop.