Effect of temperature gradient on Marangoni condensation heat transfer for ethanol–water mixtures

Abstract

This paper experimentally studied the effect of macroscopic temperature gradient on Marangoni condensation of ethanol–water vapor mixtures under a wide range of concentrations. For each concentration, the experiment was performed at different velocities and pressures. An oblique copper block was employed to create surface temperature gradient. The results indicated that local heat flux was varied along transversal condensation surface, which was caused by surface temperature gradient. This difference in heat flux might be attributed to the variation of condensate thickness on condensation surface. In addition, a mean heat transfer coefficient was derived along transversal condensation surface. For low ethanol concentration (0.5%, 1%), the coefficient kept a high value over a relative wide range of vapor-to-surface temperature difference (<10 K) and could be augmented as much as 15% as compared with literature under similar experimental condition. Moreover, the mean heat transfer coefficient generally increased with increasing velocity or pressure for all concentrations of the ethanol–water mixtures.