Article: Vincent, O; Sessoms, DA; Huber, EJ; Guioth, J; Stroock, AD; (2015) “Drying by Cavitation and Poroelastic Relaxations in Porous Media with Macroscopic Pores Connected by Nanoscale Throats”, Physical Review Letters, 113(13)
Abstract: We investigate the drying dynamics of porous media with two pore diameters separated by several orders of magnitude. Nanometer-sized pores at the edge of our samples prevent air entry, while drying proceeds by heterogeneous nucleation of vapor bubbles-cavitation-in the liquid in micrometer-sized voids within the sample. We show that the dynamics of cavitation and drying are set by the interplay of the deterministic poroelastic mass transport in the porous medium and the stochastic nucleation process. Spatiotemporal patterns emerge in this unusual reaction-diffusion system, with temporal oscillations in the drying rate and variable roughness of the drying front.
Funding Acknowledgement: National Science Foundation [CBET-0747993, CHE-0924463, ECCS-0335765]; Air Force Office of Scientific Research [FA9550-09-1-0188]; Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards program
Funding Text: The authors thank Eugene Choi for the measurement of nitrogen isotherms. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (CBET-0747993 and CHE-0924463), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-09-1-0188), and the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards program and was performed in part at the Cornell NanoScale Facility, a member of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (National Science Foundation; Grant No. ECCS-0335765).