About

Jonathan Boreyko is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech, where he has been serving since 2020. His research interests include interfacial fluid mechanics, surface wettability of micro/nano-structured materials, phase-change heat transfer processes such as condensation, frost formation, evaporation, and boiling, as well as biomimetic engineering, water and energy harvesting, droplet dynamics, and nature-inspired fluids and interfaces. Boreyko's work involves bio-inspired engineering and the development of innovative solutions for fluid and heat transfer challenges, often drawing inspiration from nature to inform his research. He holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Duke University and has previously worked as a research scientist at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and as a postdoctoral research associate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Boreyko has received numerous awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, the John R. Jones III Faculty Fellow, and the Young Investigator Program Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. His contributions to the field are recognized through his publications and research on topics such as water harvesting, synthetic trees, and biomimetic interfaces, with his work documented on Google Scholar.

Research topics

• Physics
• Composite material
• Environmental science
• Materials science
• Meteorology
• Marine engineering
• Geology
• Engineering
• Atmospheric sciences

Selected publications

• The DED-Arc number: A dimensionless correlation of wire arc additive manufacturing parameters to bead shape

  Additive manufacturing · 2026-04-12

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Self-Propelled Ice on Herringbones

  ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces · 2025-08-14 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  In the Leidenfrost regime, droplets or sublimating solids can ratchet across asymmetric surface structures by viscous entrainment with the underlying vapor flow. As an extension to these liquid-vapor or solid-vapor ratchets, here, we investigate the solid-liquid self-propulsion of melting ice disks. On hydrophilic herringbones, ice disks self-propel due to the unidirectional flow of viscous meltwater. This is a more viscous analog to Leidenfrost ratchets, except now a brief start-up time is needed for the underlying channels to get filled. When the herringbone is superhydrophobic using conformal nanostructures, the ice disk partially adheres to the ridge tops such that viscous entrainment cannot induce motion. Instead, after a much longer start-up time, the ice disk suddenly dislodges and slingshots across the surface by virtue of a mismatch in Laplace pressure of the meltwater on either end of the disk.

  PublisherDOI

• Author response for "Anti-clogging and anti-tangling fog harvesting with 3D-printed mesh-harp hybrids"

  2025-05-17

  peer-reviewSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Electrostatic Defrosting

  Small Methods · 2025-11-11

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Electrification of ice has been studied for over half a century, mostly in the context of atmospheric science. Here, the polarizability and natural thermovoltage of a substrate-bound frost sheet are exploited for frost removal by placing an actively charged electrode overhead. This new technique, which we term electrostatic defrosting (EDF), can remove up to 75% of the frost's mass from its substrate over a time scale of only minutes. A one-dimensional numerical model is developed to rationalize the effective electrostatic force exerted by the electrode on the warm end of the frost sheet. Experimentally, the effectiveness of EDF is shown to depend on the applied voltage, relative humidity of the ambient air, the gap height between the frosted substrate and the electrode plate, and the type of substrate. Although EDF primarily removes the dendritic frost structures rather than the underlying frozen condensate, this selective removal can still offer significant advantages for applications requiring improved visibility or reduced surface roughness. EDF can effectively remove frost without the application of heat, chemicals, or mechanical forces, rendering it a promising new construct for defrosting.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Anti-clogging and anti-tangling fog harvesting with 3D-printed mesh-harp hybrids

  Journal of Materials Chemistry A · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  The practicality and efficiency of fog harvesting are dramatically improved by developing mesh-harp hybrids that bypass the clogging issue of mesh harvesters and the elastocapillary tangling issue of fog harps.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Playing hot and cold for surface-independent droplet bouncing

  Newton · 2025-03-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Capillary-Wave-Driven Jumping Droplets on Superhydrophobic Colloidal Rafts

  ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces · 2025-09-02 · 1 citations

  article

  Known droplet jumping phenomena include coalescence-induced jumping, single-droplet jumping of partially constrained droplets due to a mismatch in Laplace pressure, and evaporation-induced trampolining. In this study, we introduce a novel droplet jumping phenomenon, in which multiple microdroplets jump nearly simultaneously from superhydrophobic colloidal rafts. This phenomenon is triggered by a coalescence of a microdroplet with the underlying water, which generates a radially propagating capillary wave. As the capillary wave propagates, it perturbs the rafts on which microdroplets are sitting, which leads to the launch of these droplets. Therefore, the mechanism for droplet launching is the transfer of energy from the initial coalescence site through a capillary wave to other droplets resting on the perturbed interface. A simple model is derived to estimate the size of the region on the surface in which launching of the microdroplets takes place. These findings reveal that the capillary-inertial symmetry breaking that occurs for coalescing droplets can impart useful work to flexible or floating substrates to effectively propel neighboring droplets.

  PublisherDOI

• Reduced Sliding Friction of Lubricant-Impregnated Catheters

  ACS Omega · 2024-01-10 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  During urethral catheterization, sliding friction can cause discomfort and even hemorrhaging. In this report, we use a lubricant-impregnated polydimethylsiloxane coating to reduce the sliding friction of a catheter. Using a pig urethra attached to a microforce testing system, we found that a lubricant-impregnated catheter reduces the sliding friction during insertion by more than a factor of two. This suggests that slippery, lubricant-impregnated surfaces have the potential to enhance patient comfort and safety during catheterization.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Jumping droplets

  Droplet · 2024-03-15 · 30 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract When microdroplets with quasi‐spherical contact angles coalesce together on a low‐adhesion substrate, the capillary‐inertial expansion of the liquid bridge induces a dramatic out‐of‐plane jumping event due to symmetry breaking. From the onset of merging, droplet jumping initiates after a capillary‐inertial time scale of μs with characteristic jumping speeds of order m/s. This coalescence‐induced jumping‐droplet effect is most commonly observed among a population of growing dew droplets on a superhydrophobic condenser, but can also occur by colliding deposited droplets together or during droplet sliding on fog harvesters. In this review, we cover the historical development of capillary‐inertial jumping droplets, summarize the decade‐long effort to rationalize the ultra‐low energy conversion efficiency and critical droplet size of the phenomenon, and then present 15 variations on a theme of jumping. Capillary‐inertial jumping droplets are not only a visceral illustration of the surprising power of surface tension at the microscale but they also have the potential to enhance phase‐change heat transfer, enable self‐cleaning surfaces, combat frost formation, harvest energy, and govern the rate of disease spread for wheat crops.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Numerical Analysis of Coalescence-Induced Bubble Departure for Enhanced Boiling Heat Transfer

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Exploiting Vapor Pressure Gradients to Suppress In-Plane Frost Growth

  NSF · $328k · 2016–2019

• CAREER: Synthetic Mangrove Trees for Passive Desalination and Water Harvesting

  NSF · $522k · 2017–2022

• GOALI: Exploiting Charge Separation in Ice for Electrostatic De-Icing

  NSF · $533k · 2020–2025

Frequent coauthors

• C. Patrick Collier

  Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  52 shared

• Scott T. Retterer

  Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  49 shared

• Saurabh Nath

  Université Paris Sciences et Lettres

  33 shared

• Chuan-Hua Chen

  Duke University

  29 shared

• Rebecca L. Agapov

  Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  26 shared

• Nickolay V. Lavrik

  Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  26 shared

• S. Farzad Ahmadi

  24 shared

• Bernadeta Srijanto

  Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  23 shared

Labs

• Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering LaboratoryPI

Education

• Ph.D.

  Duke University

  2012

Awards & honors

• John R. Jones III Faculty Fellow (2020)
• Leader in Research Award, Biomedical Engineering and Mechani…
• Outstanding new Assistant Professor, College of Engineering…
• NSF CAREER Award, NSF-CBET – Thermal Transport Processes (20…
• Young Investigator Program Award, Air Force Office of Scient…