With the worldwide use of heat exchangers rapidly increasing in every household as well as industry, there exists a great demand for a surface engineering technology that reduces the energy consumed during heat transfer. A class of non-wetting surfaces, lubricant-infused surfaces (LIS), have been widely proposed as one solution since they enhance the condensation heat transfer efficiency by inducing dropwise condensation and subsequent easy removal of condensed droplets. However, the loss of lubricant in LIS is typically observed over time, leading to alteration in non-wetting property as well as becoming prone to chemical and mechanical damages. In this work, we present a novel lubricant-infused copper by reinforcing the underlying nanostructures with silica nanoparticles (SiNP) to achieve copper-based heat exchangers with enhanced chemical and mechanical robustness, improved heat exchange efficiency, and self-cleaning capability. As the lubricant serves as mechanical shield and anchoring points for the lubricant to effectively retain <i>via</i> capillary force, we validate in detail the effect of additional SiNP layer on the lubricant retention. Moreover, we evaluate the performance of robust lubricant-infused heat exchangers under continuous condensing environment to find that the enhanced heat exchange efficiency retains for extended period of time even in harsh particulate dispersed environment by the self-cleaning capability. We anticipate that our design of durable, robust and self-cleanable lubricant-infused copper will pave the way in the design of heat exchangers with reduced energy consumption.

Robust lubricant-infused copper with acid resistance for self-cleanable heat exchangers

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.