Fabrication of a Lotus-type Porous Material to be Applied in Heat Pipe Wick

Abstract

There are high demands on a state of the art technology in the field of heat pipes, especially in capillary pumping performance. Previous studies concluded that a biomaterial had a superior performance as a material for the capillary wick. However, it was followed by consequences of harnessing the ecosystem. A new material that mimics a lotus stem and exceeds the performance of a coral will be a necessity. It is projected that Lotus-Type Porous Material (LTP) can outperform a coral performance as wick material. The lotus-type porous material was fabricated with a slip casting process using a starch binder and copper powder. A nylon wire was employed as the aligned pore former. To remove moisture after the slip casting process, we used a freeze-drying technique. Densification and consolidation of copper powder were carried out with the sintering process. The performance of the lotus-type porous material was characterized in order to get a capillary pumping coefficient. We analyzed the pore using an SEM and X-ray 3D Scan. The result showed that an excellent capillary pumping performance could be achieved using the lotus-type porous material. We also confirmed these phenomena using an SEM and x-ray 3D scan analysis. It is concluded that lotus-type porous material performs excellent fluid transport capability.