Experimental Investigation of the Heat Transfer Performance of Low Concentration Surfactant Aided Pool Boiling With Electric Field

Nucleate boiling has been known as one of the efficient methods for transferring large amounts of heat. Such a method has a broad spectrum of applications, for instance, thermal management of power generation and cooling of high-intensity heat flux devices. In the current work, the effect of applying electric field to the bulk solution was experimentally investigated with the presence of surfactants. A number of studies have shown how the electric fields may enhance heat transfer performance with the aid of surfactants. This work focuses on the coupling behavior of the low-concentration surfactant-aided pool boiling with the presence of electric fields and how it will affect the heat transfer performance. On the other hand, two types of surfactants with different electric charges have been chosen in this work. Namely a cationic surfactant, Dodecyl-trimethylammonium bromide (DTAB), and an anionic surfactant, Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (SDS). The coupling behavior between the surfactant and the electric field is also shown. When only surfactants are present, the critical heat flux (CHF)is reduced by 27% and 25% for 1 mM SDS and 1 mM DTAB, respectively. And the maximum heat transfer coefficient (HTC) is enhanced by 44% and 169% for 1 mM SDS and 1 mM DTAB, respectively. When an electric field is applied to both surfactants at the same concentration, the CHF doesn’t have significant enhancement. Meanwhile, HTC is enhanced by 9.2% and 4% for SDS and DTAB, respectively.