Pool boiling is an effective heat transfer process in a wide range of applications related to energy conversion, including power generation, solar collectors, cooling systems, refrigeration and air conditioning. By considering the broad range of applications, any improvement in higher heat-removal yield can ameliorate the ultimate heat usage and delay or even avoid the occurrence of system failures, thus leading to remarkable economic, environmental and energy efficiency outcomes. A century of research on ameliorating critical heat flux (CHF) has focused on altering the boiling surface characteristics, such as its nucleation site density, wettability, wickability and heat transfer area, by many innovative techniques. Due to the remarkable interest of using nanoparticle deposition on boiling surfaces, this review is targeted towards investigating whether or not metal oxide nanoparticles can modify surface characteristics to enhance the CHF. The influence of nanoparticle material, thermo-physical properties, concentration, shape, and size are categorized, and the inconsistency or contradictions of the existing research results are recognized. In the following, nanoparticle deposition methods are presented to provide a worthwhile alternative to deposition rather than nanofluid boiling. Furthermore, possible mechanisms and models are identified to explain the amelioration results. Finally, the present status of nanoparticle deposition for CHF amelioration, along with their future challenges, amelioration potentials, limitations, and their possible industrial implementation, is discussed.

Realistic estimation of combustion phenomenon can be achieved by considering a random distribution for the particles instead of uniform distribution. Hence, in this study, theoretical investigation of aluminum particles combustion is studied three dimensionally with the consideration of random dispersion for discrete sources. Moreover, flame propagation speed is predicted through a proposed thermal model in a reaction medium. In addition, it is inferred that the propagation speed of the flame is a function of concentration and diameter of aluminum dust; while the minimum ignition energy is a function of particle diameter and equivalence ratio. A suitable prediction of the model is concluded by comparing the obtained results with the experimental and analytical data.