Impacts of ultrasonication time and surfactants on stability and optical properties of CuO,Fe3O4, and CNTs/water nanofluids for spectrum selective applications

The prime objective of the present experimental work is to evaluate the impact of ultrasonication time and surfactants on the optical characteristics (transmittance and absorbance) and stability of CuO/water, CNTs/water, and Fe₃O₄/water nanofluids to be used in spectrum selective applications. Two-step method with various ultrasonication times (30 min, 60 min, and 90 min) was employed to prepare nanofluids (having volume fractions of 0.004 % and 0.0004 %). Furthermore, various surfactants (anionic, cationic, and polymer) were added to the base fluid. The study results revealed that surfactants have a significant effect on the stability of nanofluids over ultrasonication time. The nanofluids prepared using sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate (SDBS) have the highest zeta potential values than other surfactants used in the experimentation. The increase in transmittance of nanofluid was more prominent for lower concentration (0.0004 %) after one week of preparation. The concentration of nanoparticles, ultrasonication time, temperature, and surfactants influenced the optical characteristics of nanofluids. The most stabled CNTs nanofluid with 0.004 % concentration and 90 min of ultrasonication obtained an average of 67.6 % and 74.6 % higher absorbance than stabled CuO and Fe₃O₄ nanofluids, respectively. The irradiance transmitted through nanofluid was strongly dependent on the concentration and type of nanoparticles.     

Effects of thermal stratification on transient free convective flow of a nanofluid past a vertical plate

An analysis of thermal stratification in a transient free convection of nanofluids past an isothermal vertical plate is performed. Nanofluids containing nanoparticles of aluminium oxide, copper, titanium oxide and silver having volume fraction of the nanoparticles less than or equal to 0.04 with water as the base fluid are considered. The governing boundary layer equations are solved numerically. Thermal stratification effects and volume fraction of the nanoparticles on the velocity and temperature are represented graphically. It is observed that an increase in the thermal stratification parameter decreases the velocity and temperature profiles of nanofluids. An increase in the volume fraction of the nanoparticles enhances the temperature and reduces the velocity of nanofluids. Also, the influence of thermal stratification parameter and the volume fraction of the nanoparticles of local as well as average skin friction and the rate of heat transfer of nanofluids are discussed and represented graphically. The results are found to be in good agreement with the existing results in literature.     

Ultrasonically tuned surface tension and nano-film formation of aqueous ZnO nanofluids

Nanofluids’ thermophysical properties and heat transfer performance has been investigated for many years, while research on their surface tension (ST) and wetting behavior is very limited. To assess nanofluids potential as industrial products, a complete picture is required to prove their performance in a specific application. Boiling heat transfer, microfluidics and drug development are among the applications where ST is a variable. ST of water-based ZnO nanofluids were measured in the presence and absence of direct ultrasonication. The experiments covered variation of ST with ZnO concentration (0.05–0.4 vol%), ultrasonication amplitude (40% and 100%) and duration. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first report of ST– ultrasonication process relation for a nanofluid. Results showed that after direct ultrasonication, nanofluids ST is strongly affected by the temperature raise, and in those cases relative ST may provide a clearer picture. A nano-film over individual and agglomerated nanoparticles spotted via TEM imaging was affected from the ultrasonication. Such a nano-film can play a key role in the anomalous thermal transport and wettability of nanofluids. Statistical analyses revealed that changes in ultrasonication amplitude resulted in a statistically significance difference on nanofluid ST and relative ST. Changes in nanoparticle concentration caused a significant difference on the nanofluid ST while the difference in relative ST was insignificant. Variation of ultrasonication duration caused significant variations on the relative ST while the difference in nanofluid ST was not significant. This work highlights that based on specific applications ST and other related features of any nanofluid can be adjusted employing proper ultrasonication conditions.     

Optimization of ultrasonication period for better dispersion and stability of TiO2–water nanofluid

Nanofluids are promising in many fields, including engineering and medicine. Stability deterioration may be a critical constraint for potential applications of nanofluids. Proper ultrasonication can improve the stability, and possibility of the safe use of nanofluids in different applications. In this study, stability properties of TiO₂–H₂O nanofluid for varying ultrasonication durations were tested. The nanofluids were prepared through two-step method; and electron microscopies, with particle size distribution and zeta potential analyses were conducted for the evaluation of their stability. Results showed the positive impact of ultrasonication on nanofluid dispersion properties up to some extent. Ultrasonication longer than 150 min resulted in re-agglomeration of nanoparticles. Therefore, ultrasonication for 150 min was the optimum period yielding highest stability. A regression analysis was also done in order to relate the average cluster size and ultrasonication time to zeta potential. It can be concluded that performing analytical imaging and colloidal property evaluation during and after the sample preparation leads to reliable insights.     

Physics and mechanics of heat exchange processes in nanofluid flows

Nanofluids present a new type of dispersed fluids consisting of a carrier fluid and solid nanoparticles. Unusual properties of nanofluids, particularly high thermal conductivity, make them eminently suitable for many thermophysical applications, e.g., for cooling of equipment, designing of new heat energy transportation and production systems and so on. This requires a systematic study of heat exchange properties of nanofluids. The present paper contains the measurement results for the heat transfer coefficient of the laminar and turbulent flow of nanofluids on the basis of distilled water with silica, alumina and copper oxide particles in a minichannel with circular cross section. The maximum volume concentration of particles did not exceed 2%. The dependence of the heat transfer coefficient on the concentration and size of nanoparticles was studied. It is shown that the use of nanofluids allows a significant increase in the heat transfer coefficient as compared to that for water. However, the obtained result strongly depends on the regime of flow. The excess of the heat transfer coefficient in the laminar flow is only due to an increase in the thermal conductivity coefficient of nanofluid, while in the turbulent flow the obtained effect is due to the ratio between the viscosity and thermal conductivity of nanofluid. The viscosity and thermal conductivity of nanofluids depend on the volume concentration of nanoparticles as well as on their size and material and are not described by classical theories. That is why the literature data are diverse and contradictory; they do not actually take into account the influence of the mentioned factors (size and material of nanoparticles). It has been shown experimentally and by a molecular dynamics method that the nanofluid viscosity increases while the thermal conductivity decreases with the decreasing dispersed particle size. It is found experimentally for the first time that the nanofluid viscosity coefficient depends on the particle material. The higher is the density of particles, the higher is the thermal conductivity coefficient of nanofluid.     

The effects of ultrasonication power and time on the dispersion stability of few-layer graphene nanofluids under the constant ultrasonic energy consumption condition

Few-layer graphene (FLG) nanofluids have received widespread interest in recent years due to their excellent thermal and optical properties. However, the low dispersion stability is one of the main bottlenecks for their commercialization. Ultrasonication is an effective method and almost an essential step to improve the stability of nanofluids. This work aimed to determine the optimal ultrasonication process for preparing stable FLG nanofluids, particularly under the constant ultrasonic energy consumption condition. For this purpose, FLG nanofluids were prepared under various amplitudes (20%–80%) and times (33.75–135 min) and evaluated by both sedimentation and optical spectrum analysis techniques. It was found that ultrasonication treatment at 30% amplitude for 90 min was sufficient for proper dispersion of FLG, and a further increase in the ultrasonication power would not benefit the stability enhancement much. However, for FLG nanofluids prepared at amplitudes higher than 30% under the constant ultrasonic energy consumption condition, their stability deteriorated seriously due to the reduced ultrasonication time, while for FLG nanofluids prepared at 20% amplitude for 135 min, they showed the higher stability, which indicates that the stability of FLG nanofluids is more sensitive to ultrasonication time than power. Therefore, a relatively longer ultrasonication time rather than a higher amplitude is recommended to prepare stable FLG nanofluids for practical applications at given ultrasonic energy consumption.     

Overview of Hybrid Nanofluids Development and Benefits

Conventional fluids have poor heat transfer properties, but their vast applications in power generation, chemical processes, heating and cooling processes, electronics and other microsized applications make the reprocessing of those thermofluids to have better heat transfer properties quite essential. Recently, it has been shown that the addition of solid nanoparticles to various fluids can increase the thermal conductivity and can influence the viscosity of the suspensions by tens of percent. Thermophysical properties of nanofluids were shown dependent on the particle material, shape, size, concentration, the type of the base fluid, and other additives. In spite of some inconsistency in the reported results and insufficient understanding of the mechanism of the heat transfer in nanofluids, it has been emerged as a promising heat transfer fluid. In the continuation of nanofluids research, the researchers have also tried to use hybrid nanofluid recently, which is engineered by suspending dissimilar nanoparticles either in mixture or composite form. The idea of using hybrid nanofluids is to further improve the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics by trade-off between advantages and disadvantages of individual suspension, attributed to good aspect ratio, better thermal network and synergistic effect of nanomaterials. As a conclusion, the hybrid nanofluids containing composite nanoparticles yield significant enhancement of thermal conductivity. However, the long-term stability, production process, selection of suitable nanomaterials combination to get synergistic effect and cost of nanofluids may be major challenges behind the practical applications.     

Experimental Assessment of Latent Heat of Evaporation for Hybrid Nanofluids

Innovative use of nanoparticles in synthesis to form hybrid nanofluids is of great interest recently. This generation of nanofluids is known to improve some thermal characteristics deliberately. In the present study, evaporative behavior of hybrid nanofluids is investigated experimentally. In boiling-mode cooling systems, longer lengths of dryouts are more preferred. In this regard, enhancing the value of heat of evaporation is a target. The experiments are implemented at temperature ranging from 90 to 155?C and in the solid volume fraction range of 0–3%. It is found that the use of hybrid nanofluids to enhance the fluid stability and in consequence the fluid latent heat of evaporation (LHE) is rational just at high working pressures (higher than 400 kPa). The most effective hybrid nanofluid in this study is 2% Ag–Au, which results in max increase of 8.7% in the latent heat of evaporation.     

The effect of particle size on the thermal conductivity of alumina nanofluids

We present new data for the thermal conductivity enhancement in seven nanofluids containing 8–282 nm diameter alumina nanoparticles in water or ethylene glycol. Our results show that the thermal conductivity enhancement in these nanofluids decreases as the particle size decreases below about 50 nm. This finding is consistent with a decrease in the thermal conductivity of alumina nanoparticles with decreasing particle size, which can be attributed to phonon scattering at the solid–liquid interface. The limiting value of the enhancement for nanofluids containing large particles is greater than that predicted by the Maxwell equation, but is predicted well by the volume fraction weighted geometric mean of the bulk thermal conductivities of the solid and liquid. This observation was used to develop a simple relationship for the thermal conductivity of alumina nanofluids in both water and ethylene glycol.     

纳米流体射流冲击冷却技术的实验研究

将高传热性能的Cu-水纳米流体作为换热工质引入射流冲击冷却技术,设计并搭建了射流冲击冷却系统,测试了该系统的换热性能和系统压降,研究了纳米粒子体积份额、入口射流速度以及射流冲击高度对系统换热性能的影响。实验结果表明,在液体中添加纳米粒子、增加射流速度、选取合适的射流冲击高度可以有效提高射流冲击冷却效果,且少量纳米粒子的加入并未引起系统压降的明显变化。     

Thermal conductance of nanofluids: is the controversy over?

Over the last decade nanofluids (colloidal suspensions of solid nanoparticles) sparked excitement as well as controversy. In particular, a number of researches reported dramatic increases of thermal conductivity with small nanoparticle loading, while others showed moderate increases consistent with the effective medium theories on well-dispersed conductive spheres. Accordingly, the mechanism of thermal conductivity enhancement is a hotly debated topic. We present a critical analysis of the experimental data in terms of the potential mechanisms and show that, by accounting for linear particle aggregation, the well established effective medium theories for composite materials are capable of explaining the vast majority of the reported data without resorting to novel mechanisms such as Brownian motion induced nanoconvection, liquid layering at the interface, or near-field radiation. However, particle aggregation required to significantly enhance thermal conductivity, also increases fluid viscosity rendering the benefit of nanofluids to flow based cooling applications questionable.     

Particle agglomeration and properties of nanofluids

The present study demonstrates the importance of actual agglomerated particle size in the nanofluid and its effect on the fluid properties. The current work deals with 5 to 100 nm nanoparticles dispersed in fluids that resulted in 200 to 800 nm agglomerates. Particle size distributions for a range of nanofluids are measured by dynamic light scattering (DLS). Wet scanning electron microscopy method is used to visualize agglomerated particles in the dispersed state and to confirm particle size measurements by DLS. Our results show that a combination of base fluid chemistry and nanoparticle type is very important to create stable nanofluids. Several nanofluids resulted in stable state without any stabilizers, but in the long term had agglomerations of 250 % over a 2 month period. The effects of agglomeration on the thermal and rheological properties are presented for several types of nanoparticle and base fluid chemistries. Despite using nanodiamond particles with high thermal conductivity and a very sensitive laser flash thermal conductivity measurement technique, no anomalous increases of thermal conductivity was measured. The thermal conductivity increases of nanofluid with the particle concentration are as those predicted by Maxwell and Bruggeman models. The level of agglomeration of nanoparticles hardly influenced the thermal conductivity of the nanofluid. The viscosity of nanofluids increased strongly as the concentration of particle is increased; it displays shear thinning and is a strong function of the level of agglomeration. The viscosity increase is significantly above of that predicted by the Einstein model even for very small concentration of nanoparticles.     

Effect of Nanoparticles on Thermal Properties Enhancement in Different Oils – A Review

The development of stable dispersion of nanoparticles in different oils is gaining momentum for close circuit applications as most of the mineral oils used are not very good thermal conductors. The enhancement of thermal conductivity with optimum enhancement of viscosity of oil with nanoparticles poses a serious challenge for use of such fluids in cooling. Transformer oil, mineral oil, silicon oil, hydrocarbon fuels, biodiesel, and some organic solutions have been used as the base fluids for studying the effect of nanoparticles for improving thermal efficiency. Innovative heat transfer fluids are produced by suspending metallic or nonmetallic nanometer-sized solid particles. Although a large number of sources are available on water-based nanofluids, the number of such reports on oil-based nanofluids is rather limited. The aim of this article is to summarize recent developments on the preparation methods of nanofluids based on oil, its stability, thermal conductivity enhancement, nanoparticle effect on viscosity, heat transfer characteristics, breakdown voltage, dielectric properties, and applications of such nanofluids.     

Effect of Clusters on Thermal Conductivity in Nanofluids

We propose a new model for the effective thermal conductivities of nanottuids, which is derived from the fact that nanoparticles and clusters coexist in the fluids. The effects of the compactness and the perfectness of the contact between nanoparticles in clusters on the effective thermal conductivity of nanofluids are analysed. The proposed model indicates that the effective thermal conductivity of nanofluids decreases with the increasing concentration of clusters. The model predictions are compared with and are in good agreement with the available experimental data.     

纳米流体对流换热机理分析

考虑在纳米流体中纳米颗粒做布朗运动引起的对流换热, 基于纳米颗粒在纳米流体中遵循分形分布, 本文得到纳米流体对流换热的机理模型. 本解析模型没有增加新的经验常数, 从该模型发现纳米流体池沸腾热流密度是温度、纳米颗粒的平均直径、 纳米颗粒的浓度、纳米颗粒的分形维数、沸腾表面活化穴的分形维数、基本液体的物理特性的函数. 对不同的纳米颗粒浓度和不同的纳米颗粒平均直径与不同的实验数据进行了比较, 模型预测的结果与实验结果相吻合. 所得的解析模型可以更深刻地揭示纳米流体对流换热的物理机理.     

几种氧化物纳米流体强化传热性能研究

以水/乙二醇混合液为基液,加入A12O3,MgO和ZnO纳米颗粒配制得到纳米流体.在自制对流传热性能测试平台上进行基液及纳米流体传热性能的测试.结果表明:同基液相比,随流体流速增大,A12O3纳米流体的传热系数变化不明显,MgO和ZnO纳米流体的传热系数均有提高.层流状态下,随雷诺数增大,三种纳米流体的传热系数都不断增...     

New trends of fractional modeling and heat and mass transfer investigation of (SWCNTs and MWCNTs)-CMC based nanofluids flow over inclined plate with generalized boundary conditions

In this paper, we have considered unsteady MHD viscous fluid flow of Carboxyl methyl cellulose (CMC) as based fluid and Carbon nanotubes CNTs (SWCNTs, MWCNTs) nanoparticles passing through an inclined plate of infinite length. Furthermore, the effects of heat source, chemical reaction, porosity and MHD are considered. Fractional model is developed by Caputo time fractional derivatives though recent trends of fractional modeling. The semi exact solutions are obtained for the governing equations in dimensionless form by Laplace transform method. Influence of fractional and other flow parameters on temperature, concentration and velocity fields are graphically illustrated. The Nusselt number, Sherwood number and skin friction are computed for fixed values of flow parameters and presented in tabular form. As a result, for larger values of fractional parameters temperature, concentration and velocity fields can be enhanced. A comparison has been drawn between SWCTs-CMC and MWCTs-CMC based nanofluids and found that MWCTs based nanofluids are more efficient in heat transfer than SWCTs-CMC based nanofluids. Further, in the absence of nanoparticles the obtained results are reduced to recently published results and this fact have been proved graphically and they are in good agreement.     

Modeling of thermal conductivity of nanofluids by modifying Maxwell’s equation using cell model approach

Nanofluid is an innovative heat transfer fluid with superior potential for enhancing the heat transfer performance of conventional fluids. Though many attempts have been made to investigate the abnormal high thermal conductivity of nanofluids, the existing models cannot precisely predict the same. An attempt has been made to develop a model for predicting the thermal conductivity of different types of nanofluids. The model presented here is derived based on the fact that thermal conductivity of nanofluids depends on thermal conductivity of particle and fluid as well as micro-convective heat transfer due to Brownian motion of nanoparticles. Novelty of the article lies in giving a unique equation which predicts thermal conductivity of nanofluids for different concentrations and particle sizes which also correctly predicts the trends observed in experimental data over a wide range of particle sizes, temperatures, and particle concentrations.     

Intriguingly high convective heat transfer enhancement of nanofluid coolants in laminar flows

We reported on investigation of the convective heat transfer enhancement of nanofluids as coolants in laminar flows inside a circular copper tube with constant wall temperature. Nanofluids containing Al₂O₃, ZnO, TiO₂, and MgO nanoparticles were prepared with a mixture of 55 vol.% distilled water and 45 vol.% ethylene glycol as base fluid. It was found that the heat transfer behaviors of the nanofluids were highly depended on the volume fraction, average size, species of the suspended nanoparticles and the flow conditions. MgO, Al₂O₃, and ZnO nanofluids exhibited superior enhancements of heat transfer coefficient, with the highest enhancement up to 252% at a Reynolds number of 1000 for MgO nanofluid. Our results demonstrated that these oxide nanofluids might be promising alternatives for conventional coolants.     

基于基液连续假设的大体系Cu-H2O纳米流体输运特性的模拟研究

分子动力学模拟是研究纳米流体的输运特性的重要手段, 但计算量庞大. 为研究能体现流动传热过程的大体系纳米流体的输运特性, 本文对基液采用连续介质假设, 将基液的势能拟合在纳米团簇的势能中, 大幅度减小了计算量, 使得大体系输运特性的模拟成为可能, 且模拟结果与多组实验结果吻合较好. 采用此方法模拟研究了速度梯度剪切对Cu-H₂O纳米流体颗粒聚集过程和聚集特性的影响, 进而对Cu-H₂O纳米流体在流动传热过程中的热导率和黏度进行了模拟计算, 定量揭示了宏观流动传热过程中不同的速度梯度、速度、平均温度和温度梯度对于Cu-H₂O纳米流体热导率和黏度的影响.