Effects of fabrication method on the cooling ability of heat sinks made of polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel

摘要

Hydrogel heat sinks (HHS) are novel self-cooled devices able to provide a cooling effect by taking advantage of the evaporation heat of water from their structures. Two HHS (5 cm × 5 cm × 0.5 cm) made entirely of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) hydrogel were fabricated by freeze-thaw method. Their cooling ability was measured by letting a stream of hot water to flow inside of a channel present in the HHS. The purpose of this work is to investigate the effects of different PVA/water mass mixing ratio used in the fabrication by determining experimentally the values of heat transfer coefficient K of the HHS.