Study of heat transfer characteristics on steel tube boilers by the application of zinc oxide and graphene coatings

Abstract

Steel tube boilers play predominant role in many process industries like nuclear power generation, petrochemical, desalination etc. The reliability of heat exchangers is an area which deserves close attention. Requirements for heat exchangers such as improved efficiency, stringent environmental needs, and cost effectiveness demand reliable materials specially for the heat exchanger tubing. Because, thermal efficiency reflects how well the boiler vessel transfers heat. To analyze the heat transfer performance of steel tube boiler, the proposed work implement the application of zinc oxide and graphene coating with an average rate of 8.06 µm and 10.9 µm, respectively. Since these coatings influences the wall thickness of steel tube boiler, the heat transfer characteristics is highly increased with enhanced heat dissipation through wall-surface. For experimental analysis, in boilers the heat transfer rate is measured using a heat transfer setup in which surface temperature and base temperature readings are recorded which in turn will be applied in the heat transfer mathematical equation to acquire the overall heat transfer rate. In addition, RSM, SEM evaluation is carried out to check whether roughness of a zinc oxide or graphene coating surface generates more area causing molecular interaction resulting in higher heat transfer rate.