Novel Coating of Porous Cu as Heat Pipe for Thermal Management
ISEF · 2021 Chemistry Fourth Award
Overview
With computers and smartphones rapidly upgrading their capacity and processing speed, cooling using heat pipes has become increasingly important to protect fragile electrical components from excessive heat. Porous copper is an effective wick material in heat pipes due to its great thermal conductivity, high surface area and great capillarity for fluid transport. However, the current fabrication method, sintering, has drawbacks of high energy input, and the possibility of damaging prefabricated components, limiting the range of electronics devices it can apply to. In this work, a novel electroplating method in producing a highly porous multilayer copper structure is proposed for the first time. By applying overpotentials of above 1 V and extending electroplating durations, intense hydrogen gas evolution is triggered alongside copper deposition to create a honeycomb-like porous structure. The effect of different combinations of overpotentials and durations on the morphologies of copper deposits is investigated. Characterization is done via scanning electron microscope, and vertical wicking tests are conducted to determine the capillarity of structures obtained. Findings show that the combination of 3 V and 120 s produces a highly regular and interconnected multilayer porous structure which exhibits excellent water wicking performance, significantly better than coatings of lower porosity and thickness. Electroplating is therefore a viable and promising option to fabricate high-performance heat pipe copper wicks, especially when electronics demand greater heat transfer capacity but offer increasingly limited space. Additionally, preliminary findings from this work suggest that future work may include strengthening the multilayer structure using overpotentials of below 1 V.
Awards (3)
- Fourth Award of $500 $500
- ASU Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service: Award of $1,000 $1,000
- Raytheon Technologies Corporation: Each winning project will receive $1,000. $1,000
Competition history
- ISEF 2021
Resources
Related projects
ISEF · 2019
Selective Phase Corrosion of Al-Cu Alloys to Fabricate Porous Metals
ISEF · 2020
Novel Fabrication and Implementation of Copper and Silver Plasmonic Nanostructure-Coated Foil as a Spectrally Selective Absorber in Highly Efficient Solar Steam Generation Under One Sun Illumination
ISEF · 2025
A Hybrid Hydrogel-Heat Sink for Enhancing GPU Performance, Solar Panel Efficiency, and Electric Vehicle Range
CWSF · 2026
A Novel Method Utilizing Latent Heat to Effectively, Efficiently and Accurately Cool Microchips
Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.
Source: Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair