Heat Transfer Performance of Vapor Chamber Having Superhydrophobic Surface

A novel vapor chamber was designed and its thickness was 3 mm. In the vapor chamber, the conventional wick was replaced by superhydrophobic surface made by chemical etching and hydrophobic modification, and the evaporator was made by sintering copper foam. The superhydrophobic surface not only improved the formation of droplet condensation with large heat transfer coefficient, but also shortened the backflow distance of the working fluid. A cooling system was established to investigate characteristic parameters of vapor chamber, including the temperature, thermal resistance and heat flux. The results show that the novel vapor chamber has the biggest cooling heat flux of 125 W/cm², which increases by 1.8 and 2.78 times of similar vapor chamber and a copper plate respectively, and it can effectively reduce the temperature of the heat source. The novel vapor chamber is widely used in the thermal management of high-power electronic devices because of its temperature uniformity and a high heat flux.