Enhanced condensation heat transfer by water/ethanol binary liquids on polydimethylsiloxane brushes

Abstract Enhancing heat transfer efficiency by liquid condensation plays a critical role in recovering and utilizing low‐grade heat. However, overall heat transfer efficiency is commonly limited by the inefficient vapor–liquid phase transition flux and enthalpy during liquid condensation. Here, we report that by introducing small amount of water into the phase‐change process of ethanol on a liquid‐like polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) brush surface, the heat transfer coefficient is significantly enhanced, in particular, by more than one order of magnitude compared to the pure ethanol condensation. Such enhanced thermal performance is primarily due to the elaborate balance between promoting condensation, that is, nucleation and growth, and increasing latent heat by regulating components of water and ethanol, as well as the rapid droplet removal by condensing on the PDMS brushes. Note that the more stabilized dropwise condensation of the binary liquids, retained by accelerating the droplet coalescence velocity, beyond filmwise condensation ensures its significant effectivity under high heat flux.