Research to improve new technology

A new research grant has been awarded to an OU academic so that he can explore how to control how droplets dry. Control of these droplets could improve applications that rely on cooling/heating processes such as removing heat from microprocessors within smartphones and computers.

Dr Marc Pradas, Lecturer in the OU’s School of Mathematics and Statistics, has been awarded £203,000 from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to do this research project which will run until 30 September 2020.

The project follows on from research, published earlier in April 2018 in Nature Communications entitled: Snap evaporation of droplets on smooth topographies, which explains that up to now, the way watermarks appear on a surface has been uncontrollable because the shape and location of a droplet as it evaporates is unpredictable. This limits many applications, such as inkjet printing, where an ink droplet can leave a distorted shape on paper, and micro-engineering, where watermarks can spoil the performance of delicate microstructures.

Dr Pradas said: “One of the aims of this EPSRC project will be to study more generic surfaces that have controllable and experimentally amenable properties, and how they affect the dynamics of droplets with dynamic size, including evaporating droplets as well as droplets in contact with porous materials.”

The research outputs will be exploited in applications of droplet control and new design rules, geometries, and operational protocols will be produced for improved droplet manipulation in technological applications that rely on cooling/heating processes and/or porous-based micro-devices.

Watch the video to find out how 'snap evaporation' works: