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Graphical abstract Highlights • The effect of variable baffle configurations on HX performance was investigated. • The influence of water mass flow and heat flux on the HTC was presented. • Experimental correlation for investigated configurations was developed. • Recognized the secondary fluid motion influence on heat transfer was investigated. • Compared the efficiency of the proposed shell-coil design with baffles with typical heat exchanger designs was presented. Abstract The paper presents the possibility of using passive intensification of heat transfer in the form of baffles to increase the energy efficiency of the shell and coil heat exchanger. The experiment was carried out by using a modular coil heat exchanger in the form of an electric heater. Water was used as a working fluid with constant thermal-flow parameters at the inlet of the module. It should be noted that experiments were made for a large range of power i.e. from 200 W to 1200 W and with mass flow rates from 0.01 kg−1 to 0.03 kg−1. For this flow range, Reynolds numbers were obtained in the field 150 < Re < 450. Consequently, all experiments were carried out for laminar flow conditions. This work shows, that due to the presence of mixed convection, natural convection has a significant effect on small values of Reynolds numbers and large values of Richard' number. Also, the baffles location has a significant influence on HX performance. The proposed solution of the shell coil exchanger with a baffle is characterized by better heat transfer efficiency on the shell side, but rather for lower values of Reynolds (Re < 150) numbers and high values of heat fluxes. For all configurations is noticeable the influence of the supplied heat flux value on the rate of heat transfer. The paper presents new experimental Nusselt numbers correlation on the shell side of the heat exchanger with core-baffles. This correlation depends on Grashoff and Dean numbers as well as dimensionless shell diameter (C/D 0), the correlation also includes Prandtl number. Experimental data were compared with selected correlations from literature as well as with own correlation. It was shown that only own semi-empirical correlation has satisfactory compliance with experimental results within 35% error band and with less than 8% of absolute deviation. The considered construction has markedly better heat transfer efficiency on the shell side for small Reynolds numbers (Re <150) comparing to the tube-in-tube exchanger with wire coil turbulator(over 20%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]