A molecular dynamics study on interfacial heat transport of alkanethiol surfactant coated nanofluids-effect of chain length and stiffness

The thermal transport across the alkanethiol surfactant layer at the nanoparticle/base fluid interface in nanofluids was investigated by molecular dynamics simulation, with consideration of the conformation of the surfactant layer with different surfactant chain lengths and backbone stiffness. The variation of temperature drop at nanoparticle-surfactant interface reveals that the interfacial thermal conductance was mediated by the chain length, possibly due to the difference in the adsorption density of surfactant on the surface of the nanoparticles, because of the blocking effect from the bending of the long alkyl chains. The intrinsic thermal conductivity of the surfactant layer increased with decreasing chain length and increasing chain stiffness because of the phonon scattering effect from the bending and cross-linking of the alkyl chains. We quantified the modes of heat flow across the surfactant layer and found that the contribution of intramolecular bonded interaction was much higher than that of atomic translation and nonbonded interaction separately. By analysing the variation of bonded interaction contrition with chain length and stiffness, it is demonstrated that the increased thermal conductivities benefited from the enhanced thermal transfer through the covalent bonds of surfactant molecules. The results can provide insights into the design of thermally conductive surfactants.