Recent Trends, Challenges and Scope in Single-Phase Liquid Flow Heat Transfer in Microchannels-A Review

Miniaturization of electronic gadgets has increased the power density and reduced the sizes of these gadgets drastically. Heat dissipation and stable operation of these electronic devices is challenge for researchers. Microchannel passages providing high surface area to volume ratio gives high heat transfer rates from small areas has emerged as potential heat dissipating and thermal control devices for Micro-Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS). High performance microchannel heat exchangers are also attractive in applications where space and/or weight constraints dictate the size of a heat exchanger or where performance enhancement is desired. In this review paper a small attempt is made to look into the recent developments and methods to enhance the heat transfer performance of microchannels by using channel geometry, coolant and structural materials. It has been also observed that Nanofluids as coolants in microchannels have excellent potential to enhance the heat transfer performance and are quickly establishing as future coolant to be reckoned with, further challenges faced by researchers and future research scope in the field of single-phase liquid flow heat transfer in microchannels are identified.