Recent advances in molecular dynamics research on nanoscale boiling heat transfer

Boiling is an effective means of producing high heat flux at low wall superheat and is widely used in many industrial fields, including chip cooling. Recently, nanoscale boiling heat transfer has become one of the research hotspots with the development of nanostructured surface technology. However, the phase change process, influencing factors and evaluation indices of nanoscale and macroscale boiling heat transfer show remarkable discrepancies due to the size effect. It is still very difficult to fully understand the nanoscale boiling process, which includes liquid film evaporation, bubble nucleation, growth, detachment and rapid boiling. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is an invaluable and widely used approach to investigate nanoscale boiling heat transfer. This paper introduces nanoscale boiling with the MD simulation method, and then compares the boiling phenomenon and the evaluation index of the heat transfer performance between the nano- and macroscale systems. The effects of various factors such as nanostructure, surface wettability, temperature, film thickness, nanoparticles and binary mixtures on nanoscale boiling are then studied in detail. The heat transfer mechanism of nanoscale boiling is discussed, and the article concludes with a summary of nanoscale boiling using MD simulation and a discussion of the challenges for future research. This paper provides a thorough overview and in-depth understanding of nanoscale boiling heat transfer.