Negative pressures in nanoporous membranes for thin film evaporation

We present a nanoporous membrane-based approach, which decouples the capillary pressure from the viscous resistance, to achieve high driving pressures and efficient liquid delivery for thin film evaporation. By using alumina membranes with ≈150 nm pore diameters, absolute liquid pressures as low as −300 kPa were achieved using isopropyl alcohol, while dissipating maximum interfacial heat fluxes of ≈96 W/cm2. Design guidelines are provided to achieve higher interfacial heat fluxes with reduced membrane thicknesses. This work shows a promising approach to address thermal management needs for next generation electronic devices.