A new regime of nucleate boiling in microsphere mesostructures: Jumping pool boiling

We have studied a new regime of nucleate boiling in distilled water on substrates representing mesostructures of monodisperse and/or polydisperse microspheres made of various materials. It is experimentally established that, under some conditions of nucleate boiling, there appear “jumping pool boiling” regimes in which bubbles do not reach the surface of underheated liquid. In addition, bubbles may capture a certain number of microspheres, lift them up to some height, and then sink together down to the vessel bottom. Alternatively, microspheres may trap a certain number of bubbles, float up toward the evaporating surface, and then (without reaching the surface) sink back to the bottom layer where the nucleate bubbling takes place. Subregimes of this boiling mechanism involving microspheres of various densities and dimensions have also been observed.