Efficient water removal from a cool surface during condensation is critically important to the enhancement of a variety of heat transfer applications. Previous work has focused on the fabrication of superhydrophobic surfaces which promote water droplets and removal via droplet shedding or jumping. Here, we report a novel strategy with a droplet self-cleaning surface which spontaneously transports all of the droplets from the condensation surface to the back side. We fabricate the self-cleaning surface by simply tailoring the wettability of the two sides of a porous membrane and demonstrate that the hydrophobic side is effective in clearing off droplets of a wide range of diameters. Even during rapid impingement of droplets smaller than 10 μm, this surface remains dry. We further demonstrate a "dry condensation" process wherein a surface undergoing rapid condensation is maintained free of droplets. This minimizes the essential thermal resistance of the process, and we estimate a twofold increase in condensation rate compared with a simple copper surface under the same conditions. Our method is tailorable, extendable to a wide range of materials and geometries, and shows great potential for a broad range of condensation processes.
Keywords: condensation; microfluidics; porous surface; self-cleaning; water harvest.