Fabrication of Nano Coating on Copper Plates to Improve Heat Transfer in Plate and Frame Heat Exchangers

Plate and frame heat exchangers are widely used in the industry due to their high heat transfer coefficient. In this research, experimental studies was carried out on corrugated plates, because the corrugations result in reducing the liquid turbulence to the counter current liquid flow and increasing heat transfer efficiency.  Dendritic nanofins were synthesized on copper plates in a heat exchanger microchannel and the effect of the heat transfer coefficient behavior was investigated. Synthesis of dendritic nanofins performed by a standard two-electrode glass cell with a graphite electrode as a reference electrode on six corrugated copper plates with dimensions of 4.6 cm ×4.6 cm in a plate heat exchanger microchannel by electrodeposition method. The dendritic copper nanofin array grew on the copper plates from electrolyte solution consisting of CuSO4 (0.6M), H2SO4 (0.4M) and an increasing current starting from 1.2 to 4.8 A/cm2 in 300 seconds. Characterization of the coated surface was performed by FESEM method, and the adhesion of this coating to the surface was investigated by AAS method. The microchannel designed with two hot and cold inlet fluids and it was installed in a system with the ability to check the improvement of the heat transfer coefficient by applying copper nanofins coatings. In this system, water was selected as a circulating fluid with two hot and cold inlets and two hot and cold outlets in the microchannel. The cold water inlet temperature was 7°C and the hot water inlet temperature was set at 45, 50 and 55°C in separate experiments. The heat transfer coefficient was measured in two stages before coating with copper nanofins and after coating. The measured increase in heat transfer coefficient between 40% and 62% as a result.