Scientists Have Found a Way to Save Energy And Boil Water More Efficiently

Whether it's a cup of tea in a kitchen or a power plant, water gets boiled a lot. The efficiency of this process will affect the amount of energy used for it every day.

A new treatment for surfaces involved in heating and evaporating water could be used to improve the situation. Two key parameters that determine the boiling process are the heat transfer coefficients and the critical heat flux.

As one improves, the other gets worse. The research term behind the technique has come up with a way to enhance both.

Youngsup Song is a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

"If we have lots of bubbles on the boiling surface, that means boiling is very efficient, but if we have too many bubbles on the surface, they can coalesce together, which can form a Vapor Film over the boiling surface."

The heat transfer efficiency is lowered by Vapor film between the hot surface and the water. The researchers came up with three different ways to modify the surface.

A bunch of tubes are added. The array of 10-micrometer-wide tubes is used to control bubble formation. A vapor film is prevented from forming.

The concentration of bubbles on the surface is reduced. The researchers added small bumps and ridges to the surface of the hollow tubes in order to tackle that. The surface area is increased and the rate of evaporation is promoted.

The microscale cavities were located in the center of the pillars. Adding more surface area helps speed up the drawing off process. The boiling efficiency is improved.

Song and his co-conspirators

The video shows water boiling on a specially treated surface that causes bubbles to form at specific points.

A layer of water between the boiling surface and the bubbles can be maintained if the pillars keep up a steady supply of liquid.

Evelyn Wang is a mechanical engineer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Next, we need to think about moreScalable approaches.

These structures aren't meant to be scaled in their current state.

The researchers are confident that they can take the work from a small-scale laboratory setting into something that can be used in commercial industries.

There is a challenge in finding ways to create the surface texture. There are different approaches that can be explored, and the procedure should work for different types of liquids.

Song believes that the details can be changed.

The research has appeared in a journal.