The control of minimum film-boiling quench temperature, T-MFB is investigated in water quenching experiments with several micro-structured surfaces on small spheres (diameters 10 and 15 mm) under saturation temperature T-sat and 1 atm. The results show increase in T-MFB and is related to the temperature drop across the micro-structures, and affected by its effective thermal conductivity < k >, height L, and base diameter D, based on the fin theory. The local temperature drop of surface microstructure depends on the hybrid Biot number, Bi-h = hL(2)/(< k > D), where h is the heat transfer coefficient. The liquid-solid contact depends on this microstructure-tip temperature, and a model for T-MFB with synthetic surface microstructure is proposed and compared with the experimental results. The theoretical limit of maximum T-MFB (under saturated water at 1 atm) for surface micro-structured small sphere is reached when Bi-h is beyond 10(2). (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.