Leidenfrost Effect Simulator (2D)

Surface Temperature

Plate temperature 150 °C

Warming up…

Live Readout

Regime

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Est. lifetime

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Vapor film

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How it works

Below 100 °C the droplet just sits and slowly evaporates. From 100 °C up to the Leidenfrost point (≈193 °C for water on a smooth metal plate) it touches the metal directly and boils violently — this transition boiling regime is actually where it evaporates fastest, because direct liquid–metal contact transfers heat efficiently.

Push the plate past the Leidenfrost point and the picture flips: vapor generates so fast under the droplet that it can't escape, and it builds into a continuous cushion a few tens of micrometers thick. That cushion insulates the droplet from the metal — heat now has to conduct across a poorly-conducting vapor gap — so despite the hotter plate the droplet lives longer and glides almost frictionlessly, hovering and skittering across the surface.

This is why the classic kitchen test works: flick water onto a pan that is "hot enough" and it sizzles away in a second (transition boiling); flick it onto a genuinely scorching pan and the droplets bead up and dance across the surface for many seconds (Leidenfrost regime).