Polymeric hollow fiber heat transfer surface for heat exchanger

•PHFHE achieve comparable thermal characteristics to metal heat exchangers.•Hollow fibers should have well-organized structure to achieve better thermal performance.•The non-woven fabric technology creates well-organized fiber structure and avoids fiber deformation.•The developed technology is suitable for massive production. Polymeric heat transfer surfaces (HTS) offer numerous advantages, such as flexibility, fouling resistance, corrosion and chemical resistance, and good recyclability. Moreover, polymeric materials have a lower carbon footprint than commonly used metal materials in the heat exchanger industry, making them an environmentally-friendly choice. In this study, we propose a novel nonwoven fabric technology for the fabrication of HTS. This technology enables the production of three-dimensional objects with precisely separated hollow polymeric fibers, resulting in highly efficient polymeric heat exchangers (HE). The fabrication process is based on the hot melt technique, where the polymeric melt (helmitin 42048) is perpendicularly applied to the longitudinal hollow fibers (polyamide 612). To evaluate the performance of the developed HTS, polymeric HE was produced and compared with a conventional aluminum HE, which served as a heater core in a gas-to-liquid application. The polymeric HE exhibited similar pressure losses on the liquid side and slightly higher losses on the gas side while achieving comparable thermal performance. For a liquid flow rate of 150 l·h−1 and an air velocity of 4 m·s−1, the polymeric HE reached a maximum thermal performance of almost 0.8 kW. The results demonstrate the functionality of the developed HTS technology and its potential as an advancement in heat transfer processes. The utilization of polymeric HTS in heat exchangers shows promising prospects for enhanced thermal performance, paving the way for sustainable and efficient heat transfer applications.