Pool boiling on nano-textured surfaces comprised of electrically-assisted supersonically solution-blown, copper-plated nanofibers: Experiments and theory

Abstract

Pool boiling of ethanol, water and their binary mixtures on nano-textured surfaces comprised of copper-plated nanofibers was studied experimentally. The nanofiber-covered surfaces were formed using polymer nanofibers produced by the electrically-assisted supersonic solution blowing process followed by copper-plating. The pool boiling data on the nano-textured surfaces did not follow the standard boiling curve and showed a sharp deviation. In particular, the heat flux and accordingly, the heat transfer coefficient, were found to be significantly higher at low surface superheats. It was also demonstrated that the nano-textured surfaces developed in the present work are robust and do not deteriorate after several cycles of pool boiling experiments. The process features uncovered in the present experiments are attractive for cooling of high-power microelectronics. A novel theoretical approach to pool boiling modeling introduced in this work revealed several detailed morphologies of fluid motion in the pool boiling process observed experimentally. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.