Explosive boiling?

International audienceA liquid drop immersed into a host liquid can be strongly superheated before nucleation of the first vapour bubble occurs. A millimetre-size water drop indeed survives several minutes at T = 170–190◦C at ambient pressure into sunflower or silicon oil. When nucleation eventually occurs, the drop may boil explosively, as shown in Figure 1 with sunflower oil as the host liquid. In this case the bubble growth is only limited by the diffusion of heat and the whole drop vaporises within milliseconds