The high surface area of porous media enhances its efficacy for evaporative cooling, however, the evaporation of pure substances often encounters issues including local overheating and unstable heat transfer. To address these challenges, a volume of fluid (VOF) model integrated with a species transport model was developed to predict the evaporation processes of ternary mixtures (water, glycerol, and 1,2-propylene glycol) in porous ceramics in this study. It reveals that the synergistic effects of thermal conduction and convective heat transfer significantly influence the mixtures evaporation, causing the fluctuations in evaporation rates. The obtained result shows a significant increase in water evaporation rates with decreasing the microcolumn size. At a pore size of 30 μm and a porosity of 30%, an optimal balance between capillary forces and flow resistance yields a peak water release rate of 96.0%. Furthermore, decreasing the glycerol content from 70% to 60% enhances water release by 10.6%. The findings in this work propose the approaches to optimize evaporative cooling technologies by controlling the evaporation of mixtures in porous media.

The development of nanoporous membrane structure provides a potential opportunity for the advanced ultra-thin liquid film evaporation process, for which the ability of effectively and continuously maintaining the nano-thin liquid film is crucial to realize its superior performance. In this work, we elucidated the nanopore-based ultra-thin water film evaporation characteristics with non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation. A self-pumping water transport through the nanopore was observed, which is attributed to the driving force induced by the evaporation meniscus of thin liquid film. The dry-out crisis will occur with the increasing membrane thickness. We demonstrated that the hydrophobic carbon nanotube (CNT) can be utilized as the coating inside the hydrophilic silicon nitride (Si₃N₄) nanopore, which reduces the flow resistance and presents an excellent capability to replenish the evaporated water. Based on the above findings, the internal coating of CNT is an advisable strategy for nanopore-based ultra-thin liquid film evaporation, possessing a stable high evaporation flux as well as a good mechanical strength.