An Experimental Study on the Frost Prevention using Micro Liquid Film of an Antifreeze Solution

The effect of antifreeze solution liquid film on the frost prevention is experimentally investigated. It is desirable that the antifreeze solution spreads widely on the heat exchanger surface forming thin liquid film to prevent frost nucleation while having small thermal resistance across the film. A porous layer coating technique is adopted to improve the wettability of the antifreeze solution on a parallel plate heat exchanger. The antifreeze solution spreads widely on the heat exchanger surface with $100{\mu}m$ thickness by the capillary force resulted from the porous structure. It is observed that the antifreeze solution liquid film prevents a parallel plate heat exchanger from frosting. The reductions of heat and mass transfer rate caused by the thin liquid film are only $1{\sim}2%$ compared with those for non-liquid film surface.