Boiling characteristics on the reduced graphene oxide films

Abstract The graphene has been interested world-widely for the superb mechanical and electrical properties. Among them, the thermal conductivity of graphene was often reported as the 500–5000 W/mK. We tried to apply the graphene to the thermal application of boiling heat transfer through the graphene coating. The graphene was used for the reduced graphene oxide flakes in water (RGO colloid). The RGO colloid boiling on silicon-dioxide heater (substrate) showed both the boiling heat transfer and the critical heat flux enhancement as 65% and 70%, respectively. After RGO colloid boiling, the base graphene layer (BGL) with 10–100 nm thickness below the self-assembled foam-like graphene (SFG) was observed. In order to confirm the effect of BGL on the enhanced boiling performance, the only water boiling on an artificial graphene multilayers (RGO film) coated heater was conducted, and shows the similar result with the RGO colloid boiling.