Enhancement of Boiling with Scalable Sandblasted Surfaces

Abstract

Surface engineering has been leveraged by researchers to enhance boiling heat transfer performance, with benefits ranging from improved thermal management to more efficient power generation. While engineered surfaces fabricated using cleanroom processes have shown promising boiling results, scalable methods for surface engineering are still limited despite most real-world industry-scale applications involving large boiling areas. In this work, we investigate the use of sandblasting as a scalable surface engineering technique for the enhancement of pool boiling heat transfer. We vary the size of an abrasive Al 2 O 3 sandblasting medium (25, 50, 100, and 150 μm) and quantify its effects on silicon surface conditions and boiling characteristics. The surface morphology and capillary wicking performance are characterized by optical profilometry and capillary rise tests, respectively. Pool boiling results and surface characterization reveal that surface roughness and volumetric wicking rate increase with the abrasive size, which results in improvements in the critical heat flux and the heat transfer coefficient of up to 192.6 and 434.3% compared to a smooth silicon surface, respectively. The significant enhancement achieved with sandblasted surfaces indicates that sandblasting is a promising option for improving boiling performance in industry-scale applications.

Manipulation of droplets and bubbles for thermal applications

“…119 Another important consideration for industrial applications is scalability. As such, scalable manufacturing methods such as chemical etching and oxidation 120 and sandblasting 121 have recently been developed to obtain required surface morphologies.…”

“…Another important consideration for industrial applications is scalability. As such, scalable manufacturing methods such as chemical etching and oxidation 120 and sandblasting 121 have recently been developed to obtain required surface morphologies. Furthermore, an emerging area of interest is to utilize additive manufacturing to engineer micro‐ and macrostructures for thermal applications 122–125 …”

Three‐Tier Hierarchical Structures for Extreme Pool Boiling Heat Transfer Performance

“…This work provides surface design guidelines for extreme pool boiling heat transfer, that is, the effective separation of nucleating bubbles, enhanced evaporation by nanostructures, and exploiting capillary wicking are essential. We expect that our design guidelines can be adopted for industry‐scale boiling applications by creating surfaces using scalable processes such as sandblasting; [ 26 ] for example, a similar hierarchical structure can be created by sandblasting a surface using first a larger abrasive and subsequently a smaller abrasive. Furthermore, physical insights obtained in this work can be utilized in other applications such as electrochemical oxygen or hydrogen evolution reactions, where surface–bubble interactions play a crucial role in their performance.…”

Reversible Thermally-Responsive Copolymer Valve for Manipulating Water Wicking

“…Wicking is a ubiquitous dynamic wetting process in which capillary force drives liquid flow in porous systems. , With the development of high technology, such as thermal management materials, − lab-on-a-chip , and electronic devices, , the complex and diverse application environment also puts more demands on the innovation of technology. Since wicking possesses miniaturization ability, simple equipment, and does not require external energy supply, it has been widely utilized in phase change boiling heat transfer, − water harvesting in arid environments, , moisture wicking wearable equipment, − micro biochemical testing platforms, and microfluid manipulation equipment. , In particular, wicking phenomena have become the hot direction of microfluidic manipulation technology development, such as precise one-dimensional fluid manipulation, two-dimensional planes for fluid collection, and dynamic liquid filling and mixing . However, few studies have focused on adjustable wicking with changes in the external environment, which is highly desired in advanced technology.…”