Evidence of convective heat transfer enhancement induced by spinodal decomposition

Spinodal decomposition can be driven by either diffusion or self-induced convection; the importance of convection relative to diffusion depends on the Péclet number, defined as the ratio between convective and diffusive mass fluxes. Diffusion is the dominating mechanism of phase segregation when the Péclet number is small—i.e., when viscosity and diffusivity are large—or when the domain characteristic size is small. For low-viscosity mixtures, convection is the dominating process and the segregation is very rapid as it takes a few seconds compared to the hours needed in the case of pure diffusion. In such cases, strong convective motion of the phase segregating domains is generated even in small-size systems and is almost independent of the temperature difference as long as it is below the transition value. We study experimentally the enhancement of heat transfer in a 1-mm-thick cell. A water-acetonitrile-toulene mixture is quenched into a two-phase region so as to induce convection-driven spinodal decomposition. The heat transfer rate is measured and compared to that obtained in the absence of convective motion. A substantial reduction in the cooling time obtains in the case of spinodal decomposition. The heat transfer enhancement induced by this self-induced, disordered but effectively convective effect may be exploited in the cooling or heating of small-scale systems whereby forced convection cannot be achieved because of the small sizes involved. A scaling analysis of the data based on the diffuse interface H model for a symmetric mixture near the equilibrium point yields very encouraging agree- ment and insights.