Flow Boiling Characteristics of Dilute Emulsion in Microchannel

Effect of dispersed low boiling point liquid on flow boiling performance of DI water in a microchannel has been investigated experimentally. Experiments were carried out in a single microchannel having hydraulic diameter 672 μm and also in a parallel microchannel having hydraulic diameter of each channel 500 μm. Emulsion was prepared by dispersing FC-72 in de-ionized (DI) water. Both single-phase and two-phase convective heat transfer experiments were performed at different flow rates for different volume fraction of the dispersing liquid. Results from the pure DI water were used as the base line data. It was found that presence of the dispersed low boiling point liquid doesn’t show any significant effect in two-phase convective flow, whereas in single-phase region HTC decreases marginally. Temperature gradient present along the axial direction of the microchannel was observed to reduce for the emulsion compared to the pure DI water.