• The novel airfoil fins heat exchanger was studied experimentally and numerically. • The novel airfoil fins channel has the best thermal–hydraulic performance. • The enhancement mechanism could be explained with field synergy principle. • Thermal-hydraulic correlations of novel airfoil heat exchanger were proposed. To improve the performance of waste heat recovery, a novel airfoil fins heat exchanger was applied to flue gas waste heat recovery. Two groups of experimental conditions were installed to test the heat effectiveness of the novel airfoil fins heat exchanger. The results showed that the heat effectiveness of the novel airfoil fins heat exchanger could reach more than 96%, which is higher than the conventional heat exchanger. The thermal–hydraulic performances of the novel airfoil channel, NACA 0020 airfoil channel and zigzag channel were investigated with the first and second laws of thermodynamics, which showed that the novel airfoil channel has the best comprehensive thermal–hydraulic performance among the three channels. The correlations of Nusselt number and friction factor of the novel airfoil fins heat exchanger were proposed for flue gas, whose maximum deviations were within ±5.0% and ±7.1%, respectively. The present work could provide guidance for the application of the novel airfoil fins heat exchanger in waste heat recovery.