Surface tension effects and enhancement of condensation heat transfer

The paper gives a personal commentary on some recent and on-going research in the field of condensation heat transfer. Attention is focused on methods of enhancement of heat-transfer in which surface tension plays an important role. Topics covered include condensation on the outside of finned tubes, inside 'microfinned' tubes and in microchannels, as well as dropwise condensation and pseudo-dropwise condensation which can occur for binary mixtures.