Pool boiling heat transfer evaluation of next-generation dielectric fluid: Opteon™ 2P50

The growing use of artificial intelligence has led to heavy thermal loads and high heat dissipation rates in data centers. Conventional air-cooled technologies are not able to fulfill these requirements. To overcome these challenges, two-phase immersion cooling (2PIC) has emerged as one of the leading technologies for high power-density chips. 2PIC increases the heat dissipation rate and efficiency of the system while reducing the footprint of the cooling equipment. A fluid with adequate dielectric properties, a suitable normal boiling temperature to maintain chip temperatures, and good material compatibility, is desired for 2PIC system. In this study, the pool boiling heat transfer of a new developmental dielectric fluid, Opteon™ 2P50, was experimentally investigated. The heat transfer coefficients at various heat fluxes (20–150 kW/m²) and the critical heat flux were measured using a smooth aluminum surface. Compared with HFE-7100, Opteon™ 2P50 shows higher heat transfer coefficient (up to 59% higher) and a slightly lower value of critical heat flux (around 5.9% lower). The modified Cooper correlation with the optimized leading constant resulted in reliable prediction accuracy with a 5.3% mean absolute error percentage. Overall, these results indicate that the new dielectric fluid provides similar thermal performance to some legacy fluids.