Condensation enhancement: Toward practical energy and water applications

Condensation heat transfer plays an essential role in the efficiency of energy-intensive industrial technologies including power generation, energy utilization, water desalination and harvesting, air-conditioning, and thermal management of electronics. It is well known that dropwise condensation on the hydrophobic surface (Fig. 1A), where the frequent roll-off of condensed droplets, e.g. on vertical surfaces, helps to refresh the surface that is exposed to the vapor, has an order of magnitude higher heat transfer efficiency than that of filmwise condensation on the hydrophilic surfaces (Fig. 1B). Promoting dropwise condensation by surface modification has thus been of great interest since its discovery. However, the long-standing challenge for better condensation heat transfer performance is to improve both droplet growth and surface refreshing. Compared to water-repellent micro/nanostructured materials for self-cleaning, drag reduction, anti-corrosion and anti-fogging, it is extremely challenging to create large-area superhydrophobic surfaces cost-effectively on metals with high thermal conductivity to fulfill both fluid mechanics and thermal requirements.