Issue 8, 2020

Mechanistic insights into surface contribution towards heat transfer in a nanofluid

Abstract

Nanofluids play a very important role in thermal management and heat exchange processes and for a stable nanofluid, a surfactant is a salient material. There are many contrasting reports on the thermal conductivity of nanofluids and the associated heat transport mechanism in nanofluids. In this article, four different types of nanoparticles are synthesized using citric acid and oleic acid as surfactants, followed by the assessment of their thermal conductivities. For a nanofluid of 3 wt% nanoparticles, coated with citric acid in water 67% reduction in thermal conductivity is observed, and on the other hand a 4% enhancement in thermal conductivity is observed for oleic acid-coated nanoparticles in toluene. This anomaly in the thermal transport behaviour of the nanofluid can be related to the surface properties of nanoparticles and the polarity of the base fluid. Theoretical calculation based on molecular dynamics simulations shows that the reduction in long-range interaction and fluid structuration reduce the thermal conductivity in a polar fluid with a polar surfactant coated nanoparticle.

Graphical abstract: Mechanistic insights into surface contribution towards heat transfer in a nanofluid

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
03 Jun 2020
Accepted
09 Jun 2020
First published
10 Jun 2020
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Nanoscale Adv., 2020,2, 3507-3513

Mechanistic insights into surface contribution towards heat transfer in a nanofluid

A. Singh, R. Lenin, N. K. Bari, C. Bakli and C. Bera, Nanoscale Adv., 2020, 2, 3507 DOI: 10.1039/D0NA00452A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements