Experimental study of transient boiling characteristics on three-dimensional reduced graphene oxide networks

Abstract

We report nucleate pool boiling experiments using reduced graphene oxide (RGO) colloidal suspensions on a silicon dioxide plate surface, in order to describe a kind of quasi-transition boiling phenomenon, whereby the wall temperature gradually increased as a function of time without a rapid increase in temperature at the critical heat flux (CHF). Under boiling conditions, the RGO flakes formed a three-dimensional (3D) graphene structure at the surface, so that the RGO colloidal suspension exhibited a larger boiling heat transfer coefficient and larger CHF with the quasi-transition boiling phenomenon than when the working fluid was deionized water. To evaluate the effect of the heat flux conditions on the phenomenon, various heat fluxes were investigated, and the transient behavior of the boiling heat transfer characteristics was observed. We found that the rate of change of the wall temperature in the quasi-transition boiling regime was proportional to the heat flux, even if the higher heat flux was applied following the onset of the increase in the wall temperature.