Accepted Manuscript

Heat Transfer Enhancement in Chilldown Process with Electrospun Nanofiber

Coating

Katsuyoshi Fukiba, Satoru Tokawa, Hiroki Kawashima, Hiroki Adachi

PII: S0011-2275(18)30373-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cryogenics.2019.06.004
Reference: JCRY 2954

To appear in: Cryogenics

Received Date: 5 December 2018

Revised Date: 4 June 2019
Accepted Date: 5 June 2019

Please cite this article as: Fukiba, K., Tokawa, S., Kawashima, H., Adachi, H., Heat Transfer Enhancement in
Chilldown Process with Electrospun Nanofiber Coating, Cryogenics (2019), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.cryogenics.2019.06.004

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Heat Transfer Enhancement in Chilldown Process with Electrospun Nanofiber
Coating

Katsuyoshi Fukibaa*, Satoru Tokawab, Hiroki Kawashimaa and Hiroki Adachic

aDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, Grad. School of Integrated Science and Technology, Shizuoka
Univ., 3-5-1 Johoku, Naka-ku, Hamamatsu, 432-8561, Japan
bDepartment of Applied Mechanics, Grad. School of Fundamental Science and Engineering, Waseda
Univ., 3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 169-8555, Japan
cDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, Shizuoka Univ., 3-5-1 Johoku, Naka-ku, Hamamatsu 432-8561,
Japan

Keywords: Boiling Heat Transfer, Heat transfer Enhancement, Cryogenic fluid, Chilldown

Abstract
In this study, a method to enhance boiling heat transfer in cryogenic fluids by using nanofiber coating
was proposed and validated. For this method, a nanofiber coating of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) was
fabricated on the surface of a copper plate via electrospinning, which is a technique that uses a high-
voltage electric field. A chilldown experiment conducted with the copper plate and liquid nitrogen
revealed that the nanofiber coating had the potential to reduce the chilldown time drastically. It was
observed that the heat flux through the nanofiber-coated plate increased immediately after the chilldown
period began, and it exceeded that of the plate without coating for the entire test duration. Consequently,
the chilldown (boiling) curve did not have a minimum heat flux point, which is generally seen in pool
boiling process. The critical heat flux was twice as large as that of the conventional method with a bare
copper plate. Overall, the chilldown curve of the nanofiber-coated plate was distinct from a conventional
boiling curve with a bare plate.

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1. Introduction
Today, cryogenic fluids have many kinds of applications, especially in transportation vehicles such as
rockets [1] and automobiles [2]. Before it can be loaded with cryogenic fluids, the pipe system needs to
undergo a process called “chilldown” to cool its temperature level from ambient to that of the cryogenic
fluids. At the beginning of the chilldown, the temperature difference between the pipes and the cryogenic
fluid is large. This condition leads to film boiling. The heat transfer rate during film boiling is extremely
low due to the formation of a vapor film on the walls of the pipe. The film has poor conductivity and does
not allow the wall to contact the liquid fluid, which results in low heat transfer efficiency. This
phenomenon is called Leidenfrost effect. As a result of this effect, the duration of the chilldown process
increases.
Many methods to improve boiling heat transfer have been proposed in the past. Some of these
methods propose increasing the surface area or number of nucleation sites [3,4], or introducing a layer of
coating with low thermal conductivity [5-7], etc. The methods to increase the number of nucleation sites
are usually not valid for enhancing heat transfer in film boiling. Therefore, these methods are not suited
for the chilldown process with cryogenic fluids. In contrast, the method using a layer of coating with low
thermal conductivity is effective for the process. This technique has ancient origins and our previous
study summarized the history of it [8]. Our previous study also revealed that a thin layer of coating with
low thermal conductivity fabricated on the inner walls of a fluid-carrying pipe can reduce the chilldown
time of pipe systems. The results indicated that the time taken for the chilldown process could be reduced
to about 40% of that of the method that does not use such a layer. However, there are a few limitations to
this approach in terms of efficiency, and we thought that a new method to bypass these limitations and
conduct the chilldown process more efficiently was needed.
The methods to increase the surface area or number of nucleation sites consist of various
configurations. Some of these are valid for enhancing heat transfer in film boiling. We focused on one of
the configurations proposed by Mazor et al. [9], in which frost was used to enhance heat transfer. The
study demonstrated that frost accumulation on a metallic surface could accelerate the chilldown time by
10 times the actual rate. However, frost layers are fragile and melt when exposed to ambient temperature.
Therefore, this technique is not suitable for engineering applications.
　 In this study, we proposed the use of nanofibers for the same purpose. The term nanofiber denotes
fibers with a diameter of the order of nanometers. Recently, there has been a tremendous growth in
research on nanofibers and their commercial application [10]. Strong and efficient nanofibers can be
fabricated easily by means of electrospinning, which is a technique that uses a high-voltage electric field.
In this process, thin fibers are wound over a metallic surface if a polymeric liquid solution is scattered
into the electric field. This paper reports the results of an experiment where a thin nanofiber layer of
polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) was fabricated on a copper plate. The ability of the nanofiber to enhance pool
boiling heat transfer was evaluated using liquid nitrogen as the cryogenic liquid.

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 Our literature survey revealed that the first study to utilize nanofibers for heat transfer was conducted
by Srikar et al. [11]. In this study, they employed nanofibers for intensification of drop or spray impact
cooling. Then Shiha-Ray et al. [12] improved the method with electroplating. Shinha-Ray et al. also
studied the effect of gravity on drop impact cooling enhanced with nanofiber [13, 14]. Subsequently, Jun
et al. [15], Sahu et al. [16, 17], and Sinha-Ray et al. [18] utilized nanofibers for heat transfer enhancement
of pool boiling. They used water, ethanol, heptanol and Novec 7300 as the liquid for pool boiling, and the
boiling regime was limited to nucleate boiling. The most important boiling regime in chilldown process
of cryogenic fluid is film boiling because the temperature difference between the fluid and wall is large.
In this regime, nanofiber layers affect the boiling mechanism and vary the characteristics drastically. This
study focuses on the improvement of chilldown process with liquid nitrogen by using nanofiber layers.

2. Experimental Setup
2.1 Fabrication of nanofibers
Figure 1 shows an experimental setup to fabricate nanofibers on a copper plate. A high-voltage DC
power source generates a strong electric field between a syringe and a copper plate. A syringe pump
ejects a polymeric liquid solution into the electric field at a constant flow rate. The solution is then drawn
to the copper plate and scattered. The solvent evaporates while scattering, and the nanofiber is
accumulated on the plate. In this study, a PVA solution with volume concentration of 8% was used. The
voltage, distance between the tip of the needle and the copper plate, and flow rate of the solution were 10
kV, 100 mm and 6 mL/h, respectively. The dimensions of the copper plate are t6×50×50 mm. Since the
nanofibers accumulate around the central axis of the needle, the amount of nanofiber corresponds to the
distance from the central axis. To maintain uniformity of the nanofibers on the surface of the copperplate,
the location of the plate was varied at every 30-s interval. The overall time taken to fabricate the
nanofibers was 180 s.

Fig. 1 Experimental apparatus for electrospinning

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 Electrospinning can be used to fabricate a nanofiber layer of arbitrary thickness by varying the
fabrication time. A method to measure the thickness of the nanofiber layer accurately has not been
established yet. A previous attempt to measure the same using an electric thickness gauge did not produce
successful results. Figure 2 shows the scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of the PVA nanofiber

a) × 500 b) × 2000
Fig. 2 SEM images of the PVA nanofiber layer on the copper plate.

layer on the copper plate as fabricated by electrospinning. The samples shown in these images are
different from the copper plate used in the pool boiling experiment mentioned in Section 2.2. These
samples are nanofiber layers on another copper plate of t1×20×20 mm in dimension, which were
fabricated under the same electrospinning conditions as the copper plate used in the pool boiling
experiment. Since PVA nanofibers are non-conductive, the nanofiber layers were coated with Pt
spattering before the SEM imaging. The images indicate that the diameter of the fibers are of the order of
a nanometer. In Fig. 2(b), the copper plate surface can be viewed through the gaps between the fibers.
From the image, it can be inferred that the number of nanofiber strands in the vertical direction of the
image is 10, which means that the thickness of the nanofiber layer is only a few micrometers.

2.2 Setup for pool boiling experiments

In the pool boiling experiments, a t6×50×50 mm copper plate coated with a nanofiber layer was
immersed in liquid nitrogen. The pool boiling heat transfer was investigated.
Figure 3 shows the experimental setup. The copper plate was insulated with polypropylene and its
temperature was measured using a T-type thermocouple at 3 mm from the plate surface. We assumed that
the temperature of the copper plate was uniform. The heat flux was then calculated with the temperature
variation of the copper plate. It is important to note that the Biot number in this experiment at a
temperature range under 120 K is larger than 0.1. In such a condition, temperature distribution cannot be
neglected. Therefore, the heat flux in this temperature range should be considered carefully. Figure 3(b)

4
shows the surface appearance of the nanofiber layer. The layer looks like white paint on the surface. The
fibers are too small to see the fabric structures by the naked eye.

a) Schematic diagram b) Exterior appearance of the plate with fiber

Fig. 3 Experimental setup for observing pool boiling heat transfer.

3. Results
Figure 4 shows the temperature history of the nanofiber-coated copper plate measured using a
thermocouple. Furthermore, the figure shows the history of a bare copper plate without nanofibers and a
copper plate with foamed metal on the surface. These data were referred from our previous studies [19] in
which the same experimental setup was used. The foamed metal was fabricated from copper. The
thickness and porosity of the foamed metal are 1 mm and 91%, respectively. The foamed metal was fixed
to the surface via soldering. In this figure, the time at which the temperature becomes 273.15 K is defined
as 0 s. The end of the chilldown time was defined as the time at which the temperature variation over time,
dT/dt, becomes 0.1 K/s. The duration to the end of the chilldown was 138.8 s for the bare surface without
nanofibers and 39.3 s for the surface with nanofibers, which is 28% of the duration of the former. This
duration for chilldown is almost the same as that of the foamed metal. Here, we define the heat transfer
intensification coefficient, , following the definition by Mazor et al. [9, 20].
𝑡𝑏𝑎𝑟𝑒
𝜀=𝑡
𝑐𝑜𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑
(1)

The heat transfer intensification coefficient for the nanofiber surface is 3.53.

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 Fig. 4 Temperature history for a bare copper plate, a plate with foamed metal and a plate with the
nanofiber layer.

　Figure 5 shows the chilldown (boiling) curve calculated with the temperature history shown in Fig. 4.
In this figure, the chilldown experiment progresses from high temperature (right) to low temperature (left).
It should be noted that the temperature in this figure is that at the middle of the plate, which is different
from the temperature on the nanofiber surface. In the case of the bare copper plate without nanofibers,
film boiling occurs first because the temperature difference between the plate and liquid is large at the
beginning of the test. The heat flux starts to decrease as time proceeds. Then the heat flux reaches the
minimum value at the Leidenfrost point of about 100 K, and the transition to the nucleate boiling starts.
The heat flux reaches the maximum value in the process from transition boiling to nucleate boiling.
Finally, the temperature of the plate reaches the saturation temperature and the heat transfer stops. In
contrast, the heat flux for the chilldown curve in the case of metal with nanofiber layer starts to increase
at the beginning of the test. This results in the curve losing the Leidenfrost point. The temperature
difference between the plate and the liquid gradually decreases with the progress of the chilldown period.
Therefore, the heat flux should decrease if the effect of the nanofiber layer is only to increase the surface
area. Previous studies [5-8] showed that a thin low-thermal-conductivity layer like
polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) increases the minimum heat flux temperature, which results in the
reduction of the chilldown time. One of characteristics of the chilldown curve for this method is the
increase in the critical heat flux temperature. However, the critical heat flux temperature in Fig. 5 does
not increase compared with that of the bare copper plate. Mazor et al. [20] pointed out that their heat
transfer enhancement method with frost could be explained by a one-dimensional model. The model
describes the process of boiling on the array of frost cylinders where different stages of boiling occur at

6
the same time along the cylinders. This type of hybrid boiling seems to occur in the current experiment
with the nanofiber plate and result in the chilldown curve in Fig. 5. The chilldown curve of the copper
plate with nanofiber layer is similar to that with foamed metal used in our previous study [19].

Fig. 5 Chilldown curves for a bare copper plate, a plate with foamed metal and a plate with the nanofiber
layer.

The heat transfer enhancement method using electrospun nanofibers is simple and convenient.
Electrospinning can also be used to fabricate fibers inside tubes. This is advantageous for applications
such as industrial cryogenic transfer piping system. Another advantage is that electrospinning can be used
to fabricate fibers of arbitrary thickness by varying the duration of high voltage application. Despite this,
electrospinning has a few limitations as well. First, the dispersion of this method is large. Electrospinning
is affected by various factors, such as solution, voltage, ambient temperature, and humidity [10]. It is
difficult to repeatedly fabricate a nanofiber layer with the same fiber diameter and thickness. Second,
although the nanofiber layer is sturdier than frost, which was used in the study by Mazor et al. [9], its
structure is fragile. At the end of this experiment, we left the copper plate with nanofiber coating in our
laboratory. The plate was cold, so the condensation droplets appeared on it. The nanofiber dissolved into
the droplets and disappeared. Generally, the speed of PVA dissolution into water at ambient temperature
is not so high. We are thinking that surface area increase as nanofibers causes increase in the speed of
PVA dissolution. One of countermeasures for this issue is changing the materials. Non water soluble
polymer like polyacrylonitrile probably solves this problem. Another countermeasure is a method with
coatings. For this, the fabrication of thin Pt coating on electrospun PVA surface via sputtering was
attempted in this study. The thickness of the Pt coating was about 100 nm, which was estimated using the

7
duration of the sputtering. A water droplet was poured with a pipette on the plate with nanofibers coated
with Pt. However, the previous observation of dissolving was not seen in this case. This kind of coating
could vary the surface property and have an effect on boiling heat transfer. Further research is to be
undertaken to clarify this aspect.

4. Conclusions
A method to enhance boiling heat transfer of cryogenic fluid with a nanofiber layer was proposed in
this study. The nanofiber layer made of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) was coated on the copper plate by using
the electrospinning technique. Chilldown experiments using liquid nitrogen as the cryogenic liquid
showed that the nanofiber layer reduced the chilldown time drastically. The chilldown curve for the plate
with the nanofiber layer was distinct from that of the plate without the layer.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared that there is no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP17H03479.

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Highlights:
·A method to enhance boiling heat transfer in chilldown process with electrospun nanofiber coating
was proposed and validated in this study.
·Temperature variation of a copper plate soaked in liquid nitrogen was measured in the validation
test.
·The nanofiber coating accelerated the chilldown process of the copper plate drastically.
·The chilldown time of the plate with nanofiber coating is 28 % of that without coating.

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