End Of The Leidenfrost Effect
The Leidenfrost effect complicates a lot of things. It’s almost as if physics itself conspires against humanity. This effect prevents us from effectively cooling hot surfaces with liquids. But a new structured material changes things.
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Some things in physics are a pain in the ass. This is certainly the case with the Leidenfrost effect that was discovered back in 1756. This effect takes place when a liquid meets a surface with a temperature much higher than the boiling point of the liquid in question. Part of the liquid is instantly vaporized and creates an isolation layer on which little balls of the liquid dance. The layer of vapor dramatically reduces the heat transfer and the result is that it is practically impossible to cool very hot surfaces with liquids.
The holy grail. For experts of heat isolation, beating the Leidenforst effect is the holy grail. This legendary monster was finally defeated by an international team led by experts from the City University of Hong Kong. They created a structured heat-isolating material STA (Structured Thermal Armor) which can be effectively cooled by liquids even at temperatures above 1,000° Celsius.
This is an amazing success worth smoking a hand-rolled Cuban cigar over the remains of the Leidenfrost effect. This new durable material could find applications in aerial and space technologies or even increase the safety and reliability of future generations of nuclear reactors.
The scientists created by multitextured material with its key parts having opposite thermal and geometric properties. It includes conductive pillars that act as thermal bridges, a thermally isolating membrane that sucks in and vaporizes the liquid, and also channels that act as drains for the vapor. The resulting material successfully removes the Leidenfrost effect up to temperatures of 1,150° Celsius. And as the material can be flexible and requires no further processing it should have incredible potential for practical applications.
The breakthrough research succeeded because of a multidisciplinary approach. The research needed experts from many fields, including surface, hydro and aerodynamics, cooling, material, physics, energy scientists, and various different technologies. Current technologies that were created this way only used air cooling because of the Leidenfrost effect.
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