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Scalable Nanopatterned Surfaces for More Efficient Power Plants

Many industrial plants depend on water vapor condensing on metal plates. In power plants, the resulting water is then returned to a boiler to be vaporized again, and in desalination plants, it yields a supply of clean water. The efficiency of such plants depends on how easily droplets of water can form on these metal plates, or condensers, and how easily they fall away, leaving room for more droplets to form. The key to improving the efficiency of such plants is to increase the condensers' heat-transfer coefficient – a measure of how readily heat can be transferred away from those surfaces. Mechanical engineers at MIT have developed a coated surface with nanostructured patterns that greatly increase the heat-transfer coefficient.

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Energy Energy Efficiency Green Design & Manufacturing Manufacturing & Prototyping Materials Motion Control Nanotechnology

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    Transcript

    00:00:05 The efficiency of most industrial plants depends crucially on water vapor condensing on metal plates, or condensers, and how easily the condensed water can fall away allowing for more droplets to form. Typically on a flat-plate condenser water vapor quickly condenses to form a thin liquid film on the surface reducing the condensers ability to collect more water and ultimately acting as a barrier to heat-transfer. By creating hydrophobic surfaces, either through chemical treatment or surface patterning, researchers have been able to prevent this problem by

    00:00:38 encourage water droplets to form and fall away. Now a team of MIT researchers have taken this process a step further by making surfaces that are patterned at multiple scales. A group from MIT's mechanical engineering department found that the energy released as tiny droplets of water merged to from larger ones is enough to propel the droplets upward from the surface. The removal of droplets doesn't depend solely on gravity, droplets don't just fall from the surface, they actually jump away from it. Using this information their new process produces a surface

    00:01:11 that resembles a bed of tiny, pointed leaves sticking up from the surface. These nanoscale points minimize contact between the droplets and the surface, making the release easier. After the leaf-like pattern is created a hydrophobic coating is applied using a solution that bonds itself to the patterned surface without significantly altering its shape. This patterning can be made on a film that can be applied to a variety of surfaces including the copper tubes and plates commonly used in commercial power plants. This technology could also be useful for other processes where

    00:01:45 heat-transfer is important, such as in dehumidifiers and for heating and cooling systems in buildings.