An experimental study to investigate the transient processes which occur when hot liquid spray droplets are suddenly injected into a gas contained in a closed chamber was reported previously [Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. 215E (2001) 79]. That work also presented a macroscopic (bulk) analysis model, which agreed reasonably well with the experimental data. This work presents an analysis based on the simultaneous solution of the energy and mass balance equations for a single droplet and the gas-vapour control volume associated with the droplet. Good agreement has been found between the experimental data and the results of the single droplet analysis. The values of the heat transfer Nusselt number and the mass transfer Sherwood number, found using this approach, are approximately equal to 1. This agrees well with the results obtained from the macroscopic analysis reported previously and studies on heat transfer from dense evaporative droplet sprays. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.