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Updated: Nov 2, 2025

Fabricating High-viscosity Droplets using Microfluidic Capillary Device with Phase-inversion Co-flow Structure
Published on: April 17, 2018
Coupling droplets/bubbles with a liquid film for enhancing phase-change heat transfer
Rongfu Wen1, Wei Liu2, Xuehu Ma1
1State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, Liaoning Key Laboratory of Clean Utilization of Chemical Resources, School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China.
Abstract:
Evaporation, boiling, and condensation are fundamental liquid-vapor phase-change heat transfer processes and have been utilized in many conventional and emerging energy systems. Recent advances in the manipulation of interface wetting and heterogeneous nucleation using micro/nano-structured surfaces have enabled exciting two-phase flow dynamics and heat transfer enhancement. However, independently manipulating droplets, bubbles, or liquid films through surface modification has encountered bottlenecks. In this Perspective, we discuss an emerging strategy where droplets/bubbles are coupled with a liquid film to control fluid dynamics for minimizing the thermal resistance between the liquid-vapor interface and solid substrate, thus significantly enhancing the heat transfer performance beyond the state of the art.
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