Gravity Independent Condensing Heat Exchanger

The proposal aims to develop a g-independent, robust, and efficient Capillary Condensing Heat Exchanger (CCHX) that can effectively condense and recover water. The CCHX design offers significant performance benefits over traditional CHX solutions including: 1. Eliminates Dependency on Coatings: The CCHX achieves "perfect wetting" through its unique cusp geometry, eliminating the need for performance-degrading coatings. 2. Improved Heat Transfer: Achieves dropwise condensation on ~80% of the surface, leading to an up to 10x improvement in heat transfer compared to film condensation. This allows for a potentially smaller and lighter CCHX. 3. Complete Water Recovery: Continuous flow drain ports and 3D capillary connectivity provide 100% water collection and eliminates the need for slurping mechanisms. 4. Reduced Carry-Over: Robust pinning edges minimize condensate carry-over, simplifying drain design and improving stability. 5. Efficient Drying: The high liquid surface area to volume ratio created by the cusps allows for faster condensate evaporation, which can be beneficial during storage, safing, or other equipment handling procedures. 6. Ground testable: The horizontal nature of the CCHX allows for accurate ground testing in ‘right-side-up’ or ‘upside-down’ configurations. Overall, the CCHX offers a more reliable, compact, efficient, and easier-to-use solution for water recovery in space compared to traditional CHX designs. Funding will be used to design, prototype, and test the CCHX, with a focus on meeting the specific requirements. The target markets for the technology include government space agencies, private aerospace companies, manufacturers of space systems and components, and research institutions and universities involved in space science and engineering.