The diminishment of specific heat and surface tension of coolant droplet in a dropwise evaporation process: A novel methodology to enhance the heat transfer rate

ABSTRACTThe rate of dropwise evaporation is significantly altered by additives, such as benzene, n-hexane and acetone in water. These additives change some of the thermal and physical properties of the coolants, which have significant impact on various parameters that controls the droplet evaporative cooling, such as sensible, heat extraction period, droplet momentum and contact area. The open literature does not reveal the effects of the aforesaid additives on the dropwise evaporation. Therefore, in the current work, an attempt has been made to investigate the effects of above-mentioned additives on dropwise evaporation rate and reveal the mechanism involved. The droplet evaporative cooling experiments are conducted on a 2 mm thick AISI 304 steel plate (10 × 10 mm). The result shows that with increment in benzene and n-hexane concentration in water, the evaporation time significantly reduces. This is attributed to the decreasing surface tension, specific heat and contact angle. However, in case of aceton...