The spontaneous convective patterns induced by evaporation of a pure liquid
layer are studied experimentally. A volatile liquid layer placed in a
cylindrical container is left free to evaporate into air at rest under ambient
conditions. The liquid/gas interface of the evaporating liquid layer is
visualized using an infrared (IR) camera. The phenomenology of the observed
convective patterns is qualitatively analysed, showing in particular that the
latter can be quite complex especially at moderate liquid thicknesses.
Attention is also paid to the influence of the container diameter on the
observed patterns sequence.Comment: videos include