Effects of surface wettability on nucleate pool boiling heat transfer for surfactant solutions

Experiments for pool boiling of deionised water and acetone with different surfactant, 95% sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), Triton X-100 and octadecylamine, have been conducted under atmospheric pressure to investigate the effect of surface wettability. The boiling curves for different concentrations of surfactant solution on both smooth and roughened surfaces were obtained. The results show that the addition of surfactant can enhance the water boiling heat transfer, and the enhancement is more obvious for SDS solution; but has little influence on the acetone boiling curve. While the roughened surface enhanced the heat transfer for Triton X-100 solution, it also decreased the heat transfer coefficient for SDS solution. All these can be explained by including the changing of surface wettability, which has been neglected for a long time and should be an important parameter influencing boiling heat transfer. By incorporating such effects, the modified Mikic–Rohsenow pool boiling model, we proposed, can predict these experimental data well.