Experimental investigation on heat transfer of spray cooling with the mixture of ethanol and water

Experiments were conducted to investigate the performance of the spray cooling heat transfer. Pure water and the mixture of water and ethanol (the volume fraction of ethanol ranges from 0.05% to 10%) were used as working fluids. The performance of pure water and the mixture were compared using the identical heater and solid-cone spray nozzle. The maximum heat flux in the experiment was up to 170 W/cm2. The experimental results indicated that adding ethanol to water is one of the most effective methods to enhance the heat dissipation and to control the device temperature simultaneously. The volume fraction of ethanol in water is the main factor affecting the spray cooling performance. The optimal volume fraction of ethanol for the improvement of the heat transfer performance is 4%.