Ultrahigh heat transfer enhancement using nano-porous layer

Heat transfer enhancement is one of the key issues of saving energies and compact designs for mechanical and chemical devices and plants. We discover an ultrahigh convective heat transfer performance compared to the well-known heat transfer correlations caused by a nano-particle porous surface: the maximum increase of heat transfer coefficient was around 180%. This nano-particle porous layer can be formed on the substrate surface by an etching with some acids or alkalis including around 100 nm size nano-particles made from copper oxide, carbon nano-tube and aluminium oxide. Moreover, we have done some experiments using a co-current flow heat exchanger consisting of hot and cold water-channels and obtained an ultrahigh heat transfer performance: over 200% increase compared to the conventional correlation. On the other hand, in order to theoretically investigate effects of nano-particle porous layer structures on the surface energy transfer, the energy transfer from fluid to the heat transfer surface is calculated by a classical molecular dynamics method. Energy transfer to the surface from the fluid strongly depends on the surface structures in nanometre scale that affect the static structure and dynamic behaviours of fluid molecules in the vicinity of the surface. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.