BOILING OF SUPERHEATED FLUOROCARBON DROPS IN WATER - EFFECT OF CLATHRATE-HYDRATE SHELLS ENCAPSULATING DROPS

This communication briefly describes a high-speed videographic study o n boiling of drops of a liquid fluorocarbon (HFC-134a; CF3CH2F) modera tely superheated in a water pool. Each drop is either encapsulated by, or free from, a solid clathrate-hydrate phase, which can form at the fluorocarbon/water interface under particular thermodynamic conditions , The present study shows that such a hydrate phase over a drop causes multibubble nucleation in the drop, thereby making the succeeding boi ling process far more vigorous than it would proceed in the absence of the hydrate phase. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.