Surface Engineering for Phase Change Heat Transfer: A Review

TL;DR

This review discusses advances in surface engineering techniques, especially micro and nanotechnologies, to improve phase change heat transfer processes like boiling and condensation, highlighting current fabrication methods and future research needs.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of fabrication techniques for metallic and silicon-based surfaces and emphasizes the need for further theoretical and experimental work to optimize surface design.

Findings

Micro and nanotechnologies enable precise surface control.

Surface modifications can enhance nucleation and heat transfer.

More research is needed for cost-effective, optimized surface designs.

Abstract

Among numerous challenges to meet the rising global energy demand in a sustainable manner, improving phase change heat transfer has been at the forefront of engineering research for decades. The high heat transfer rates associated with phase change heat transfer are essential to energy and industry applications; but phase change is also inherently associated with poor thermodynamic efficiencies at low heat flux, and violent instabilities at high heat flux. Engineers have tried since the 1930's to fabricate solid surfaces that improve phase change heat transfer. The development of micro and nanotechnologies has made feasible the high-resolution control of surface texture and chemistry over length scales ranging from molecular levels to centimeters. This paper reviews the fabrication techniques available for metallic and silicon-based surfaces, considering sintered and polymeric coatings. The influence of such surfaces in multiphase processes of high practical interest, e.g., boiling, condensation, freezing, and the associated physical phenomena are reviewed. The case is made that while engineers are in principle able to manufacture surfaces with optimum nucleation or thermofluid transport characteristics, more theoretical and experimental efforts are needed to guide the design and cost-effective fabrication of surfaces that not only satisfy the existing technological needs, but also catalyze new discoveries.