What is Subcooling Degree

The use of micro-heat exchangers increased with the advancement of microfluidics. These microdevices present some advantages like elevated surface area-to-volume ratio resulting in high heat transfer rates. Micro-heat exchanger with phase change is a new application of such devices. The simultaneous momentum, heat, and mass transfer at microscale still require investigations due to the inherent complexity. The main goal of the chapter is to demonstrate experimentally and numerically the capability of the micro-heat exchanger use in the continuous process of ethanol excess recovery from the biodiesel. The influence of flow rate, ethanol/biodiesel molar ratio, and temperature on the ethanol evaporation performance was evaluated. The flow rate and the ethanol/biodiesel molar ratio influenced negatively the evaporation. In contrast, the temperature was affected positively. The mathematical model was able to capture the main features of the continuous evaporation; however, further improvements must be performed in order to consider the thermodynamics characteristics.