A highly efficient and sustainable heat sink via liquid film boiling in hybrid mesh with active liquid supply

Two-phase heat transfer holds great potential to achieve efficient thermal management for high-power appli-cations. However, achieving high thermal performance and sustainability simultaneously could be mutually exclusive. Here, we develop a rational design of a heat sink via liquid film boiling in hybrid mesh with active liquid supply. The heat sink exhibits a high critical heat flux of over 600 W/cm2 and an average heat transfer coefficient of 38 W/cm2K at a flow rate of only 0.4 ml/s on a heating surface of 1 cm2 with water under at-mospheric conditions. The proposed architecture that comprises a superhydrophilic porous layer maintaining efficient liquid film boiling via a 3-D manifold decreasing wicking length enables huge heat dissipation with small pumping power and water consumption. The visualizations and the results of theoretical modeling demonstrate that the critical heat flux of the liquid film boiling on our functional structure is mainly constrained by the venting of vapor bubbles and increases with increase in flow rate before the liquid wicking limit is reached. The proposed strategy of employing liquid film boiling with minimum liquid transport distance may suggest a new design direction for efficient and sustainable two-phase cooling.

Automated summary

We developed a rational design of a heat sink using liquid film boiling and hybrid mesh with active liquid supply. The heat sink achieved a high critical heat flux of over 600 W/cm2 and an average heat transfer coefficient of 38 W/cm2K with a flow rate of only 0.4 ml/s on a 1 cm2 heating surface under atmospheric conditions. The design utilized a superhydrophilic porous layer and a 3-D manifold to maintain efficient liquid film boiling and decrease liquid transport distance, enabling efficient and sustainable two-phase cooling.