Project Description

Heat exchangers are the backbone of various important industries such as petrochemical, food processing, power stations and sewage treatment plants. Thus, failure of heat exchangers can potentially lead to plant shut down which can result in approximate annual cost of 0.25% of GDP of an industrialized country. Fouling or deposition of unwanted material has been the biggest culprit over many decades. Although various solutions such as design changes, optimal fluid temperature and velocity, etc. have been suggested to mitigate fouling, it remains one of the biggest challenges in the heat exchanger industry. One of the recent approaches to control fouling it to modify the surface characteristics i.e. to use superhydrophobic surfaces. Flow over a superhydrophobic substrate experiences less shear stress thereby decreasing the probability of fouling initiation. Stability of superhydrophobic substrates can be enhanced by infusing liquid in the micro spaces in them. Hence, it is important to understand particle aggregation on liquid infused superhydrophobic substrates which are important to understand foulant deposition. Here, we propose to investigate droplet dynamics and particle agglomeration morphodynamics on liquid infused superhydrophobic surfaces.