I-Corps: Study of Commercialization Aspects for nFE Technology

用于散热或增加热量的设备和系统通常被称为“热管理平台”。这些系统影响各种应用，从制冷(冰箱、空调、光电子芯片/激光、计算机等)，到石油勘探(例如，深井钻探)，到生物技术(例如，核酸的快速热循环)，到发电(例如，涉及煤炭、太阳能、核能、地热能等的热电厂)。该团队发现，通过使用纳米颗粒涂层和使用具有纳米级表面粗糙度的工程表面(这被称为“纳米翅片效应”或“NFE”技术)，可以增强制冷剂的沸腾和冷凝。所提出的创新表面(具有工程纳米级粗糙度或纳米翅片)被证明随着粗糙度的增加而显著增强沸腾过程中的换热。这是非常可取的，因为它能够使涉及在高热负荷下沸腾的设备小型化，同时还能够降低操作温度。I-Corps项目中的拟议活动将被用来深入了解NFE技术的目标部署合适的细分市场，以及NFE技术需要加强的方面，以便更好地响应不同细分市场的客户需求。NFE技术存在巨大的市场需求(仅在美国，节能设备的市场规模就达到51亿美元，预计未来5年将以8%的速度增长)。新兴经济体空调使用量的指数增长进一步加剧了为太阳能热获取设计节能解决方案的必要性。热管理要求将显著影响电子封装行业的增长。通过将纳米涂层和添加剂与温度纳米传感器相结合，发现了“纳米鳍效应(NFE)”，并将其用于开发可调的热阻抗网络。数值模型表明，纳米颗粒增强的表面积与界面热阻抗网络的耦合产生了非铁磁效应。因此，NFE技术可用于满足各种紧急的热管理需求。这项拟议的研究解决了许多行业(和国防部)的一个重要技术瓶颈，并具有重大商业影响的巨大潜力。将NFE技术融入各种细分市场将在以下领域提供革命性的解决方案：能源节约(建筑物/暖通空调)、可再生能源(集中太阳能/CSP、光伏/光伏)、传统发电(核能、煤炭、地热)、交通(航空航天、汽车、海洋)、土木工程(使用微/纳米流体技术管理水资源)、化工/加工业(石油化工)、电力管理(光电子、芯片冷却)、国土安全和生命科学(农业、生物医学、制药/治疗学、药物发现、药物输送)。具有低进入门槛的NFE的一个特定市场应用是定制紧凑型热交换器(HX)和换热流体(HTF)的性能。使用NFE技术可以定制各种热交换器，适用于从能源和国防到流程工业应用的各种应用。其他应用包括：(A)生物技术；(B)国土安全/生物安全；(C)能源采集(包括石油和天然气勘探、常规/不可再生和可再生能源技术)；以及(D)能源效率/可持续性。

Devices and systems that are employed for heat removal or heat addition are often referred to as "Thermal Management Platforms." These systems impact various applications ranging from cooling (refrigerators, air-conditioners, opto-electronic chips/ lasers, computers, etc.), to oil exploration (e.g., deep drilling), to biotechnology (e.g., rapid thermo-cyling for nucleic acids), to power generation (e.g., thermal power plants involving coal, solar, nuclear, geo-thermal power, etc.). This team has discovered that boiling and condensation of refrigerants can be enhanced by using nanoparticle coatings and using engineered surfaces with nano-scale surface roughness (this is called the "nanoFin Effect" or "nFE" technology). The proposed innovative surfaces (with engineered nano-scale roughness or nanofins) are shown to significantly enhance heat transfer during boiling as the roughness is increased. This is highly desirable as it enables miniaturization of devices involving boiling at high heat loads while also enabling the reduction in operating temperatures. The proposed activities in the I-Corps project will be utilized to gain insights about the suitable markets segments for targeting deployment of nFe Technology and the aspects of nFE Technology that needs to be strengthened in order to be more responsive to needs of customers in various market segments. Substantial market demand exists for nFE technology (the market for energy efficient devices in the US alone was $5.1 billion and is projected to grow at a rate of 8% over the next 5 years). The exponential increase in the use of air-conditioning in emerging economies adds further urgency to the need to devise energy-efficient solutions for solar heat gain. Thermal management requirements will significantly affect the growth of electronic packaging industries. "nanoFin Effect (nFE)" was discovered and leveraged for developing tunable thermal-impedance networks by integrating nanoparticle coatings and additives with temperature nano-sensors. Numerical models indicate that nFE arises from the coupling of enhanced surface area of nanoparticles with the interfacial thermal impedance networks. Hence nFE Technology can be leveraged for various acute thermal management needs. The proposed study addresses an important technical bottleneck for many industries (and the Department of Defense), and has a great potential for significant commercial impact. Impregnation of the nFE technology into a variety of market segments would provide transformative solutions in: energy conservation (buildings/ HVAC), renewable energy (concentrated solar power/ CSP, photo-voltaics/ PV), traditional power generation (nuclear, coal, geothermal), transportation (aerospace, automotive, marine), civil engineering (water resources management using micro/nano-fluidics), chemical/ process industries (petro-chemicals), power management (opto-electronics, chip cooling), homeland security, and life-sciences (agriculture, biomedical, pharmaceuticals/ therapeutics, drug discovery, drug delivery). One specific marketable application of nFE with low barriers to entry - is tailoring the performance of compact heat exchangers (HX) and Heat Transfer Fluids (HTF). Wide varieties of heat exchangers can be tailored using nFE Technology for various applications ranging from energy and defense to process industry applications. Other applications include: (a) Biotechnology; (b) Homeland Security/ Bio-Safety; (c) Energy Harvesting (including oil and gas exploration, conventional/non-renewable and renewal energy technologies); and (d) Energy Efficiency/ Sustainability.