A review of boiling heat transfer characteristics in binary mixtures

•The recent developments in pool and flow boiling heat transfer of binary mixtures have been reviewed.•The important effects on boiling heat transfer performance of binary mixtures have been investigated and summarized.•Established heat transfer correlations for both pool boiling and flow boiling of binary mixtures have been evaluated and compared.•Future research requirements on mechanism study and heat transfer enhancement of binary mixtures have been highlighted. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art knowledge of boiling heat transfer in binary mixtures with special emphasis placed on the heating and cooling industry. The advantage of using refrigerant mixtures over pure refrigerants include the enhancement of system coefficient of performance (COP), better match with the desired thermal load and being safer, more environmental-friendly refrigerants. In other words, the concept of using mixtures enables more flexible selection of suitable working fluids in particular thermal applications. The purpose of this review article aims to summarize the important published articles on boiling heat transfer in binary mixtures, as well as to identify limitations to existing studies, hereby providing guidelines, directing future studies and invoking further innovations of this well-established but still promising thermal management technique. The present article reviews straightforward on both pool boiling and flow boiling of binary mixtures in a systematic and comprehensive way. Specifically, in addition to the effects of fluid composition, heat flux, mass flux, pressure and heater surface condition, this article also reviews the effects of mass diffusion, heats from dilution and dissolution on pool boiling heat transfer of binary mixtures, along with the effects of flow orientation, flow regime and flow instability on flow boiling heat transfer of binary mixtures. Many papers reviewed herein relate to the heat transfer correlations towards boiling of binary mixtures.