Boiling enhancement has many applications ranging from high flux electronic cooling to industry boilers and evaporators for power and cooling. Bi-functional boiling surfaces couple metal oxide hydrophilic film with precision controlled hydrophobic nucleation sites were developed and performed in recent pool boiling experiment. The formed nanostructures have shown significant enhancement on boiling heat transfer coefficient as well as shifted boiling curves. The increased nucleated boiling and decreased wall superheat can greatly reduce “hot spots” thus improve the life of high power electronics. At the same time, the size of conventional boiler and evaporators in power and cooling industries can benefit greatly from potential size reduction coming out of this research.

 Boiling project