More boiling means faster cooling, and when it comes to cooling equipment like nuclear reactors, every degree counts.
More boiling means faster cooling, and when it comes to cooling equipment like nuclear reactors, every degree counts.
Splash a few drops of water on a hot pan and if the pan is hot enough, the water will sizzle and the droplets of water seem to roll and float, hovering above the surface.
The temperature at which this phenomenon, called the Leidenfrost effect, occurs is predictable, usually happening above 230 degrees Celsius. The team of Jiangtao Cheng, associate professor in the Virginia Tech Department of Mechanical Engineering, has discovered a method to create the aquatic levitation at a much lower temperature, and the results have been published in Nature Physics. Alongside first author and Ph.D. student Wenge Huang, Cheng's team collaborated with Oak Ridge National Lab and Dalian University of Technology for sections of the research.
The discovery has great potential in heat transfer applications such as the cooling of industrial machines and surface fouling cleaning for heat exchangers. It also could help prevent damage and even disaster to nuclear machinery.
Read more at Virginia Tech
Image: Wenge Huang inspects material samples in the lab of Jiangtao Cheng. Photo by Alex Parrish for Virginia Tech.
