International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

A review of nanofluid stability properties and characterization

in stationary conditions
A. Ghadimi ⇑, R. Saidur, H.S.C. Metselaar
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A new engineering medium, called nanofluid attracted a wide range of researches on many cooling pro-
Received 3 December 2010 cesses in engineering applications, which are prepared by dispersing nanoparticles or nanotubes in a host
Received in revised form 1 April 2011 fluid. In this paper, the stability of nanofluids is discussed as it has a major role in heat transfer enhance-
Accepted 1 April 2011
ment for further possible applications. It also represents general stabilization methods as well as various
types of instruments for stability inspection. Characterization, analytical models and measurement tech-
niques of nanofluids after preparation by a single step or two-step method are studied.
Keywords:
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Stability
Nanofluid
Characteristics
Thermal conductivity
Viscosity
Thermo-physical properties

1. Introduction colleagues have carried out experiments on heat transport in sys-

One of the most significant scientific challenges in the industrial
area is cooling, which applies to many diverse productions, includ-
ing microelectronics, transportation and manufacturing. Techno-
logical developments such as microelectronic devices operating
at high speeds, higher-power engines, and brighter optical devices
are driving increased thermal loads, requiring advances in cooling.
The conventional method for increasing heat dissipation is to in-
crease the area available for exchanging heat to use a better heat
conductive fluid. However, this approach involves an undesirable
increase in the size of a thermal management system; therefore,
there is an urgent need for new and novel coolants with improved
performance. The innovative concept of ‘nanofluids’ – heat transfer
fluids consisting of suspended of nanoparticles – has been
proposed as a prospect for these challenges [1].
Maxwell was the first presenter of a theoretical basis to predict
a suspension’s effective conductivity about 140 years ago (1873)
and his theory was applied from millimeter to micrometer sized
particles suspensions but Choi and Eastman [2] introduced the
novel concept of nanofluids by applying the unique properties of
nanofluids at the annual Mechanical Engineering meeting of
American Society at 1995. Goldstein et al. [3] added the condition
that the particles must be in colloidal suspension. Choi and his
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +60 3 79674451; fax: +60 3 79675317.
E-mail addresses: Azadeh_ghadimi@yahoo.com, Azadeh_ghadimi@siswa.um.
edu.my (A. Ghadimi).
tems with CuO nanoparticles in water and Al2O3 particles in ethyl-
ene glycol and water. They found that the particles improve the
heat transport by as much as 20%, and they interpreted their result
in terms of an improved thermal conductivity k/k0 which they
named the effective thermal conductivity [3].
A nanofluid is a fluid produced by dispersion of metallic or non-
metallic nanoparticles or nanofibers with a typical size of less than
100 nm in a liquid. Nanofluids have attracted huge interest lately
because of their greatly enhanced thermal properties. For instance,
experiments showed an increase for thermal conductivity by dis-
persion of less than 1% volume fraction of Cu nanoparticles or car-
bon nanotubes in ethylene glycol or oil by 40% and 150%,
respectively [1]. There are also various potential advantages from
nanofluid testing namely: better long-term stability and thermal
conductivity compared to millimeter or even micrometer sized
particle suspensions and less pressure drop and erosion particu-
larly in microchannels. Though, there are still major application
prospects in advanced thermal applications, they remain in the
early stages of development. About a decade ago, some researchers
reported the heat transfer and flow characteristics of the different
nanofluids namely: Trisaksri and Wongwises [4], Beck [5], Wang
and Mujumdar [6], Duangthongsuk and Wongwises [7], Godson
et al. [8], Li et al. [9] and Wen et al. [10], Leong et al. [11]. However,
prior to use nanofluids for heat transfer, significant knowledge
about their thermophysical properties is required, especially their
thermal conductivity and viscosity. Many researchers have
measured the thermophysical properties of nanofluids while many

0017-9310/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2011.04.014
4052 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068
Nomenclature
E energy
El electrostatic repulsion
x interparticle surface-to-surface distance
W weight/stability coefficient
M molecular weight
N Avogadro’s constant
K thermal conductivity
k constant rate of aggregation
T temperature
Greek symbols
a collision efficiency
k mean free path
l dynamic viscosity
others used well-known predictive correlations. Their works have
been both experimental and theoretical [12].
This review focuses on the stability of nanofluids, which is crit-
ical to eventual utilization of nanofluid in practice. The subject was
put into consideration recently since different investigators reach
different results with the same nanoparticles. Therefore, it was
concluded that stability measurement and investigation for each
nanofluid preparation may be leading to a standard way of prepa-
ration and unified data. Hence, experimental studies on prepara-
tion and different stability methods of nanofluids are reviewed.
Theoretical attempts made to explain the associated characteristic
mechanisms are also outlined. In addition to these, the measure-
ment methods proposed for the determination of stability are sum-
marized and thermophysical property predictions of the models
are compared with experimental findings, and significant discrep-
ancies are specified.
2. Nanofluid preparation methods
Preparing a stable and durable nanofluid is a prerequisite opti-
mizing its thermal properties. Therefore, many combinations of
material might be used for particular applications, namely: nano-
particles of metals, oxides, nitrides, metal carbides, and other non-
metals with or without surfactant molecules which can be
dispersed into fluids such as water, ethylene glycol, or oils [1]. In
the stationary state, the sedimentation velocity of small spherical
particles in a liquid follows the Stokes law [13]
2R2
V¼ ðq  q L Þ  g
9l p
where V is the particle’s sedimentation velocity; R is the spherical
particle’s radius; l is the liquid medium viscosity; qP and qL are
the particle and the liquid medium density, respectively and g is
the acceleration of gravity. This equation reveals a balance of the
gravity, buoyancy force, and viscous drag that are acting on the sus-
pended nanoparticles. According to Eq. (1), the following measures
can be taken to decrease the speed of nanoparticles’ sedimentation
in nanofluids, and henceforth to produce an improvement for the
stability of the nanofluids: (1) reducing R, the nanoparticles size;
(2) increasing l, the base fluid viscosity and (3) lessening the differ-
ence of density between the nanoparticles and the base fluid
(qP  qL). Clearly reducing the particle size should remarkably de-
crease the sedimentation speed of the nanoparticles and improve
the stability of nanofluids, since V is proportional to the square of
R. According to the theory in colloid chemistry, when the size of
t viscosity
q density
U volume fraction
W surface potential
Subscripts
A van der Waals
d particle
IEP iezo electric point
M maximum
Nf nanofluid
PZC point of zero charge
S nanoparticle
tot sum
particle decreases to a critical size, Rc, no sedimentation will take
place because of the Brownian motion of nanoparticles (diffusion).
However, smaller nanoparticles have a higher surface energy,
increasing the possibility of the nanoparticle aggregation. Thus,
the stable nanofluids preparation strongly link up with applying
smaller nanoparticles to prevent the aggregation process concur-
rently [14].
Two different techniques apply to produce nanofluids namely:
single-step and two-step method.
2.1. Two-step technique
In this method, dry nanoparticles/nanotubes are first produced,
and then they are dispersed in a suitable liquid host, but as nano-
particles have a high surface energy, aggregation and clustering are
unavoidable and will appear easily. Afterward, the particles will
clog and sediment at the bottom of the container. Thus, making a
homogeneous dispersion by two step method remains a challenge.
However, there exist some techniques to minify this problem like
high shear and ultrasound. Therefore, we will discuss different
methods of making a stable nanofluid in the next section. Nanofl-
uids containing oxide particles and carbon nanotubes are produced
by this method. This method works well for oxide nanoparticles
and is especially attractive for the industry due to its simple pre-
paring method. But its disadvantage due to quickly agglomerated
particles brings about many challenges nowadays. As nanoparti-
cles disperse partially, dispersion is poor and sedimentation hap-
pens so a high volume concentration is needed increasing the
heat transfer (10 times of single step) and accordingly the cost
ð1Þ would be as much as loading [15]. The two-step method is useful
for application with particle concentrations greater than 20 vol.%
but it is less successful with metal nanoparticles. However, some
surface treated nanoparticles showed excellent dispersion [16].
The first materials tried for nanofluids preparation were oxide par-
ticles, mainly because they are easy to make and chemically stable
in solution [17].
2.2. Single step technique
In this method nanoparticle manufacturing and nanofluid prep-
aration are done concurrently. The single-step method is a process
combining the preparation of nanoparticles with the synthesis of
nanofluids, for which the nanoparticles are directly prepared by
physical vapor deposition (PVD) technique or a liquid chemical
method (condensing nanophase powders from the vapor phase
directly into a flowing low-vapor–pressure fluid is called VEROS).
 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068 4053

tion in conductivity enhancement. But generally, to obtain a high-

quality suspension, small particles have to meet these two princi-
ples: (1) diffusion principle: particles are scattered by a liquid
medium and dispersed into the liquid medium. (2) Zeta potential
principle: the zeta potential absolute value among particles must
be as large as possible, making a common repulsive force between
the particles [27].
According to the literature, there are three effective tactics used
to manage stability of suspension against sedimentation of nano-
particles. Some of the researchers applied all of these methods to
gain better stability [28–30] but others just applied one [31] or
two techniques [32–34] with satisfaction. There is no standard to
recognize the superlative mix up of combining methods. This area
acquires more experiments to be clarified. The techniques are sum-
marized below:
Fig. 1. Ultrasonic-aided submerged arc nanoparticle synthesis system to produce
TiO2 nanofluid [18].
3.1. Surfactant or activator adding

In this method drying, storage, transportation, and dispersion of This is one of the general methods to avoid sedimentation of
nanoparticles are avoided, so the agglomeration of nanoparticles is nanoparticles. Addition of surfactant can improve the stability of
minimized and the stability of the nanofluids is increased. A disad- nanoparticles in aqueous suspensions. The reason is that the
vantage of this method is that it is impossible to scale it up for hydrophobic surfaces of nanoparticles/ nanotubes are modified to
great industrial functions and is applicable only for low vapor pres- become hydrophilic and vice versa for non-aqueous liquids. A
sure host fluids. This limits the application of the method repulsion force between suspended particles is caused by the zeta
[1,3,6,9,15]. Recently, Chang et al. [18] prepared nanofluids of potential which will rise due to the surface charge of the particles
TiO2 nanoparticles dispersed in water by a one-step chemical suspended in the base fluid [35,36]. However, care should be taken
method using a high pressure homogenizer. This method is called to apply enough surfactant as inadequate surfactant cannot make a
modified magnetron sputtering. The schematic of the apparatus sufficient coating that will persuade electrostatic repulsion and
can be seen in Fig. 1. compensate the van der Waals attractions [37]. The effect of sur-
factant on aggregated particle size distribution can be demon-
3. Importance of the stability of nanofluid strated as shown in Fig. 3.
Popular surfactants that have been used in literature can be listed
Preparing a homogeneous suspension is still a technical chal- as sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) [35,37–41], SDBS [21,28,29,39],
lenge due to strong van der Waals interactions between nanopar- salt and oleic acid [38,42,139], cetyltrimethylammoniumbr-
ticles always favoring the formation of aggregates. To obtain omide (CTAB) [32,138], dodecyl trimethylammonium bromide
stable nanofluids, some methods are recommended, such as phys- (DTAB) and sodium octanoate (SOCT) [43], hexadecyltrimeth-
ical or chemical treatment. They are listed as the addition of surfac- ylammoniumbromide (HCTAB), polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)
tant, surface modification of the suspended particles or applying [22,44,45] and Gum Arabic [39]. Choosing the right surfactant is
powerful forces on the clustered nanoparticles. Spreading sur- the most important part of the procedure. It could be anionic,
face-active agents have been used to modify hydrophobic materi- cationic or nonionic [46].
als to enable dispersion in an aqueous solution [20–22].
Otherwise clogging, aggregation and sedimentation happen and
cause declining of suspension characteristics like thermal conduc-
tivity, viscosity and increasing specific heat.
There exists a theory that clustering and aggregation is one of
the main features in stability and extraordinary enhancement in
thermal conductivity of nanofluids [23,140] although this theory
may be highly specific to the high aspect ratio nanoparticles,
including single wall nanotubes. Philip et al. [24] and Evans et al.
[23] claimed that the high aspect ratio structure of the fractal-like
aggregates is a key factor allowing rapid heat flow over large dis-
tances. They also stated that well dispersed composites show low
thermal conductivity enhancement but composites with fractal
aggregates show significant enhancements, even with considerable
interfacial resistance. Gharagozloo and Goodson [25] also mea-
sured fractal dimensions for the 1%, 3% and 5% volume concentra-
tions of Al2O3 in H2O and concluded that aggregation is a more
likely cause for the measured enhancements of nanofluid. Con-
trarily, another theory shows that agglomeration and clustering re-
duce stability and thermal conductivity improvement. Hong et al.
[26,110] claimed that ultrasonicated Fe nanofluids, due to their
broken clusters, got enhancement in thermal conductivity
although this enhancement reduced as a function of elapsed time
after production. Therefore, for classification of the stability theory Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the high-pressure homogenizer for producing
more experimental works are needed to clarify the role of aggrega- nanofluids [18].
4054 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068

Fig. 3. Particle size distributions of nano-suspensions. (a) Al2O3–H2O without SDBS, (b) Al2O3–H2O with SDBS, (c) Cu–H2O without SDBS and (d) Cu–H2O with SDBS.
Concentration of nanoparticles and SDBS surfactant are 0.05% weight fraction, respectively [29].

The disadvantage of surfactant addition is for applications at the
high temperatures [10,14,47] as above than 60 °C [32,48] the
bonding between surfactant and nanoparticles can be damaged.
Therefore, the nanofluid will lose its stability and sedimentation
of nanoparticles will occur [6].
3.2. pH control (surface chemical effect)
The stability of an aqueous solution nanofluid directly links to
its electrokinetic properties. Through a high surface charge density,
strong repulsive forces can stabilize a well-dispersed suspension
[27–29,49–53]. Xie et al. [54] showed that by simple acid treat-
ment a carbon nanotube suspension gained a good stability in
water. This was caused by a hydrophobic-to-hydrophilic conver-
sion of the surface nature due to the generation of a hydroxyl
group. The isoelectric point (IEP) is the concentration of potential
controlling ions at which the zeta potential is zero. Thus, at the
IEP, the surface charge density equals the charge density, which
is the start point of the diffuse layer. Therefore, the charge density
in this layer is zero. Critical to nanoparticle nucleation and stabil-
ization in solution is that the repulsive energy is smaller for small
particles, so a larger zeta potential is required for suspension sta-
bility [18]. As the pH of the solution departs from the IEP of parti-
cles the colloidal particles get more stable and ultimately modify
the thermal conductivity of the fluid. The surface charge state is
a basic feature which is mainly responsible for increasing thermal
conductivity of the nanofluids [52,53]. Also in some experiments
particles’ shape conversion was related to the pH variation [49,55].
In the liquid suspension, particles attract or repel each other.
This interaction depends on the distance between particles and
the total interface energy Etot that is the sum of the van der Waals
attraction EA and the electrostatic repulsion Eel between them. The
Eel between two charged particles with the surface potentials Wd1
and Wd2 is approximated by the DLVO theory:
where r is the radius of particles, x is an interparticle surface-to-sur-
face distance, and the other symbols have their conventional
meanings.
It is notable that higher potentials (Wd or f) lead to a bigger po-
tential barrier for agglomeration. In aqueous nanofluid of CuO with
0.3 vol.% and PZC of about 8.5–9.5, the interparticle distance is
about 100 nm for mobility-equivalent spherical particles. At this
condition, the second term in the bracket of above equation is neg-
ligible compared to the first. Thus, the repulsion energy of the
same-sized particles goes up approximately in proportion to f2.
The attraction energy between the same particles is given by
the Hamaker equation: EA = A132r/(12x). The Hamaker constant
A132 of metal oxide is typically on the order of 1020 J. Using the
above equation, the Hamaker equation, and the estimated Wd, Etot
is calculated as a function of x at different pHs as shown in Fig. 4. In
this condition, the repulsion barrier gets bigger than the attraction
as pH goes from the PZC, which makes the colloids more stable. At
pH 8 or 10 when W is small, however, the repulsion barrier disap-
pears, and particles are only subjected to the attractions. Strong
particle agglomeration is expected in that situation. Here, we need
to quantify the suspension stability in terms of collision efficiency,

   
0 1 r1 r2 1 þ expðkxÞ
Eel ¼ 2Wd1 Wd2 In þ ðW2d1 þ W2d2 Þ ln½1  expð2kxÞ
r1 þ r2 1  expðkxÞ
Fig. 4. The interaction potentials at various pHs as a function of interparticle
ð2Þ
distance [53].
 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068
a, which is responsible for colloidal particle growth. The a, a reci-
procal value of stability coefficient W, is related to the rate con-
stant of aggregation, k = akdiff = kdiff/W.
The kdiff represents the rate constant of the coagulation between
uncharged particles. Then a general relation of stability coefficient
W to total interaction energy Etot can be derived [53]
Z 1  
Etot dx
W ¼ 2r exp ð3Þ
0 kb T ð2r þ xÞ2
For example, as the pH of the nanofluid goes far from the isoelectric
point, the surface charge increases by applying SDBS surfactant in
Cu–H2O nanofluid. Since more frequent attacks occur to the surface
hydroxyl and phenyl sulfonic group by potential-determining ions
(H+, OH and phenyl sulfonic group), zeta potential and the colloi-
dal particles increase. So the suspension gets more stable and even-
tually changes the thermal conductivity of the fluid [21].
Lee [56] also worked on different pH of nanofluids with Al2O3.
The experiments indicated that when the nanofluid had a pH of
1.7, the agglomerated particle size was reduced by 18% and when
the nanofluid had a pH of 7.66, the agglomeration size was in-
creased by 51%. More particles aggregated in pH of 7.66 because
of reduction in electric repulsion force. When Al2O3 particles are
immersed in water, hydroxyl groups (–OH) are produced at the
surface of the Al2O3 particle. The relevant reactions depend on
the solution pH. When the pH of the solution is lower than the
PZC, the hydroxyl groups react with H+ from water which leads
to a positively charged surface. Alternatively, when the pH of the
solution is higher than the PZC, the hydroxyl groups react with
OH from water and create a negatively charged surface [107]. In
addition, as it is demonstrated from Table 1, the particle sizes differ
when the pH of nano-suspensions change [39].The optimized pH is
different for different nanoparticles. For example, the proper pH for
alumina is around 8 meanwhile for copper and graphite nanopar-
ticles are 9.5 [57] and about 2.0 respectively. The pH for the point
of zero charge also changes by temperature variation as is shown
in Table 2 [50].
3.3. Ultrasonic vibration
All the mentioned techniques aim to change the surface proper-
ties of suspended nanoparticles and to suppress forming clusters of
particles, with the purpose of attaining stable suspensions. Ultra-
sonic bath, processor and homogenizer are powerful tools for
breaking down the agglomerations in comparison with the others
like magnetic and high shear stirrer as experienced by researchers
Table 1
Particle size change of Al2O3/distilled water nanofluids with two pH values [39].
Nanofluid Al2O3/DI Al2O3/DI/PBSa/HCl Al2O3/DI/PBS
pH 1.7 7.66
Mean particle size (nm) 170 139 1033
a
Phosphate buffered saline contains sodium chloride, sodium phosphate and
potassium phosphate and helps to keep a constant pH.
Table 2
Values of pHpzc of the TiO2 between 5 and 55 °C [50].
Temperature (°C) PHPZC
5 6.62
15 6.39
25 6.17
35 5.97
45 5.78
55 5.61
4055
[38]. However occasionally after passing the optimized duration of
the process, it will cause more serious problems in agglomeration
and clogging resulting in fast sedimentation. Furthermore, there is
a new method to get stable suspensions proposed by Hwang et al.
[38] which consists of two micro-channels, dividing a liquid stream
into two streams. Both streams are then recombined in a reacting
chamber. Breaking the clusters of nanoparticles was studied using
the high-energy of cavitations [58]. This work was conducted for
Carbon Black with water and silver with silicon oil nanofluids.
When the suspension contacted with the interior walls of the
interaction chamber, it will flow through the microchannel. There-
fore, the flow velocity of the suspension through the microchannel
should be increased according to Bernoulli’s theorem, and concur-
rently cavitations extensively occurred. In this fast flow region,
particle clusters must be broken by the combination of various
mechanisms, including (i) strong and irregular shock on the wall
inside the interaction chamber, (ii) microbubbles formed by cavita-
tion-induced exploding energy, and (iii) high shear rate of flow.
This leads to obtain homogeneous suspensions with fewer aggre-
gated particles at high-pressure. This procedure can be repeated
a number of three times to achieve the required homogeneous
nanoparticle distribution in the base fluids. A schematic of this
method is presented in Fig. 2.
An ultrasonic disruptor is a more general accessible apparatus
than the one prepared by Hwang et al. [38]. Many researchers used
this technique to obtain a stable nanosuspension. In some cases,
they mixed different methods of stabilization to fine-tune the re-
sults. A summary of investigators who reached diverse duration
of stability using ultrasonic methods is given in Table 3. Although
it was noted that typically it is rare to maintain nanofluids synthe-
sized by the traditional one-step and two-step methods in a homo-
geneous stable state for more than 24 h (Peterson & Li, 2006) [107]
we gathered.
4. Stability inspection instruments
There are some instruments and methods that can rank the rel-
ative stability of nanosuspension. The list includes UV–Vis spectro-
photometer, zeta potential, sediment photograph capturing, TEM
(Transmission Electron Microscopy) and SEM (Scanning Electron
Microscopy), light scattering, three omega and sedimentation bal-
ance method. Therefore, the rate or percentage of sedimentation
will be identified by analyzing gathered data.
4.1. UV–Vis spectrophotometer
Even though the stability of a nanofluid is the key issue for its
application, there are limited studies on estimating the stability
of a suspension. Ultra Violet–Visible spectrophotometer (UV–Vis)
measurements have been used to quantitatively characterize col-
loidal stability of the dispersions. One of the most striking features
of this apparatus is its applicability for all base fluids, whereas zeta
potential analysis has restrictions for the viscosity of the host fluid.
An UV–Vis spectrophotometer exploits the fact that the inten-
sity of the light becomes different by absorption and scattering
of light passing through a fluid. At 200–900 nm wavelength, the
UV–Vis spectrophotometer measures the absorption by liquid
and is used to analyze various dispersions in the fluid [56]. Typi-
cally, suspension stability is resolved by measuring the sediment
volume versus the sediment time. However, this method is unsuit-
able for nanofluid dispersions with a high concentration and espe-
cially for CNT solutions. These dispersions are too dark to
differentiate the sediment visibly. Jiang et al. [37] were the first
investigators who proposed sedimentation estimation using UV–
Vis spectrophotometer for nano suspensions. In this method, the
4056 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068

Table 3
Summary of different ultrasonic processes.

Investigator Nanoparticle Base fluid Concentration Stability process Duration Sedimentation

[59] Al2O3 (45 nm) DW 1–5.5 vol.% Ultrasonic cleaner 15 h Minutes after preparation
EG 1–8 vol.%
[60] Al2O3 (11 nm) DW 0.8 vol.% Ultrasonication 6h N/A
[61] Al2O3 (38.4 nm) DW 1–4 vol.% Ultrasonication 11 h After 12 hours
CuO (28.6 nm) 1–4 vol.%
[62] CuO (10 nm) DI 0.003 vol.% Ultrasonication 2–7 h N/A
[35] MWCNT DI + SDS 0–1.6 vol.% N/A N/A N/A
(1050  1030 nm) Oil + SDS
Fullerene (10 nm) DI + SDS 0–1.6 vol.% N/A N/A N/A
Oil + SDS
Mixed fullerene (10 nm) EG + SDS 0–1.6 vol.% N/A N/A N/A
C70 and C60 Oil + SDS
DI + SDS
CuO (33 nm) EG + SDS 0–1.6 vol.% N/A N/A N/A
DI + SDS
SiO2 (12 nm) DI + SDS 0–1.6 vol.% N/A N/A N/A
[29] Al2O3 (25 nm) DW + SDBS 0–0.08 Ultrasonication, pH control and Surfactant 15 min N/A
(N.P) wt.% adding
DW 0–0.14 wt.% 1h
(SDBS)
Cu (25 nm) DW + SDBS 15 min
DW 1h
[12] TiO2 (21 nm) DW 0–1.2 vol.% Ultrasonication 2h N/A
[31] Al2O3 (43 nm) DW (0.33–5) vol.% Ultrasonication 6h N/A
[63] TNT (10  100 nm) EG (0.5-8) wt.% Ultrasonic bath 48 h More than 2 months stability
[26] Fe (10 nm) EG (0.2– Ultrasonic 10– Optimized 30 min
0.55) vol.% 70 min
cell disrupter
[53] CuO (25 nm) DW 0.3 vol.% N/A N/A
[21] CuO (25 nm) DW + SDBS 0.1 wt.% Ultrasonic vibrator, pH control and 1h N/A
surfactant addition
[22] Graphite (nm) DW + PVP 0.5 wt.% Ultrasonic vibration 30 min N/A
[42] Fe3O4 (15 nm) Kerosene + oleic 0–1.2 vol.% Ultrasonication 0– Stable
acid 80 min
[64] ZnO (20 nm) ammonium poly 0.02 vol.% Horn ultrasonic 0– Stable over 10,000 h
60 min
(40–100 nm) methacrylate + DI
[39] Al2O3 (40–50 nm) DW 1 vol.% Horn ultrasonic 0– Particle size reduction
30 min
Ultrasonic bath 8h
[40] MWCNT DW + SDS 0–1 vol.% Ultrasonic disruptor 2h Surfactant adding avoid
(1030 nm  1050 lm) entanglement
SiO2 (7 nm) DW Stable
CuO (35.4 nm) DW Stable
CuO (35.4 nm) EG Stable

first step is to find the peak absorbance of the dispersed nanopar- Table 4
Summary of different nanofluids peak absorption measured by UV–Vis
ticles at very dilute suspension by scanning. As the concentration
spectrophotometer.
of suspension has a linear relation with absorbance, preparing a
standard to fit a linear relation to at least three different dilute con- Nanoparticle Base fluid Peak wavelength Investigator
centrations (0.01–0.03%) will be the next step in this method. Rel- MWCNT and fullerene Oil 397 [35]
ative stability measurement will be followed by preparing the Aligned CNT DW 210 [67]
CNT DW 253 [37]
desired concentration of nanofluid and put aside for a couple of
Tio2 DW 280–400 nm [18]
days. Whenever it is needed to check the relative stability, the Cu DW 270 [27]
supernatant concentration will be measured by UV–Vis spectro- CuO DW 268 [27]
photometer and the concentration can be plotted against time. This Ag DW 410 [44]
method was used by Refs. [35,56,65,66]. There also exist a sum-
mary from different nanofluid peak absorptions by UV–Vis spec- Au nanoparticles from different preparation methods measured
trophotometer in Table 4. by TEM and peak wavelength are summarized in Table 5.
According to Mie’s theory [68], the surface plasmon absorption
and the plasmon bandwidth are dependent on the size of metallic
particles in the solution. Consequently, the peak value represents 4.2. Zeta potential test
the most populated nanoparticle size in the solution. Additionally,
by increasing the particle size especially smaller than 20 nm, the Zeta potential measurement is one of the most critical tests to
bandwidth decreases. Contrarily, the bandwidth of the surface validate the quality of the nanofluids stability via a study of its
Plasmon for the particles larger than 20 nm, increases with the par- electrophoretic behavior [53,72]. According to the stabilization
ticle size [69,70]. As the particle size increases, the local peak in the theory [7], the electrostatic repulsions between the particles in-
UV–Vis spectra shifts towards longer wavelength [71]. Tsai et al. crease if zeta potential has a high absolute value which then leads
[71] have conducted a series of tests on this theory. The sizes of to a good stability of the suspensions [22].
 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068 4057

Table 5
Volumes of gold nanofluid in different synthesis conditions [71].

Condition Basefluid Na3 Tannic HAuCl4 Particle Peak

citrate acid (ml) size wavelength
(ml) (ml) (nm)
A DW 0.2 2.5 3 21.3 528
B DW 0.2 5 6 43.7 530.5
C DW 3 0.1 1 8 568.5
E DW 3 2.5 6 9.3 647
G DW 3 0.1 3 15.6 721.5

The experiments are conducted by using a 0.05% weight fraction

of nanosuspension to measure zeta potential and particle size [29].
The relationship between suspension stability and zeta-poten-
tial arises from the mutual repulsion that occurs between like-
charged particles. For this reason, particles with a high surface
charge tend not to agglomerate, since contact is opposed. Typically Fig. 6. Octahedral-Cu2O nanofluids 24 h after their preparation (CuSO4 molar
concentration from 0.0025 mol/L to 0.002 mol/L) [49].
accepted zeta-potential values are summarized below in Table 6.
Generally, a suspension with a measured zeta-potential above
30 mV (absolute value) is considered to have good stability
[73,74] this is one of the most common methods among the sion will put aside to capture photos after certain period of time. By
researchers to determine the stability as mentioned above. comparing these photos of nano suspensions, sedimentation of sus-
pension will be apparent. Different sets of nanofluid preparation for
4.3. Sediment photograph capturing the photo capturing can be seen at Figs. 5–7. Clearly variable pH, vis-
cosity and weight fractions for Al2O3 and Cu and Cu2O were investi-
A primary method to find out about sedimentation of nanofluids gated after seven days and 24 h by photo capturing.
is photo capturing. After preparation, some amounts of the suspen-

Table 6
Zeta potential and associated suspension stability [74]. 4.4. TEM (Transmission Electron Microscopy) and Scanning Electron
Microscope (SEM)
Z potential (absolute value [mv]) Stability
0 Little or no stability TEM and SEM are very useful tools to distinguish the shape, size
15 Some stability but settling lightly
and distribution of nanoparticles. Nevertheless, it cannot present
30 Moderate stability
45 Good stability, possible settling the real situation of nanoparticles in nanofluids when dried sample
60 Very good stability, little settling likely are needed. Cryogenic electron microscopy (Cryo-TEM, Cryo-SEM)
might provide a method to resolve this problem if the microstruc-
ture of nanofluids is not changed during cryoation. Nanoparticles

Fig. 5. Variation of the nanofluids viscosity with pH and nanoparticles weight fraction at temperature 303 K: (a) the variation of the viscosity with pH, (b) the variation of the
viscosity with nanoparticles concentration, (c) the sediment photograph of Al2O3–H2O suspensions after depositing for seven days, (d) the sediment photograph of Cu–H2O
suspensions after depositing for seven days [57].
4058 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068

Fig. 7. TEM pictures of (left) Cu nanofluids, (middle) CuO nanoparticles and (right) alkanethiol terminated AuPd colloidal particles [1].

Fig. 8. SEM of carbon nanotube (a) single-walled carbon nanotubes obtained by arc discharge and (b) multiwalled carbon nanotubes obtained by chemical vapor deposition
growth [1].

Fig. 9. TEM micrograph of nanoparticles (a) nano-alumina (b) nano-copper [29].

aggregation structure in nanofluids could be directly monitored by
this instrument as well [14].
The following procedure is attributed to the standard SEM/TEM
micrographs of nanoparticles [75]:
(1) Obtain stable nanofluid in solution form.
(2) Drop one drop of the solution on sticky tape of top surface of
the SEM specimen holder (carbon grid in the case of TEM).
(3) Heat in the vacuum oven to dry the liquid drop or dried in
the air naturally.
(4) Obtain solid particle.
(5) Bring into the vacuum chamber of SEM/TEM for picture after
coating with Au and Pd.
4.5. Light scattering method
The single-particle analysis from which the light scattering
theory can be approached has been used to visualize polymer mol-
ecule structure in solutions or colloidal particles in suspension. The
intensity of scattered light for a single particle is related to the
particle volume. While the interaction of electromagnetic radiation
with a small particle is weak in light scattering, most of the inci-
dent light is transmitted and only a little amount of light is distrib-
uted. In one study, the average size of the clusters was obtained
every five minutes after the sonication stopped [26].
4.6. Sedimentation balance method

The stable nanofluids have different shapes after preparation as The stability of the nano-suspension can be also measured by
are shown in TEM and SEM images in Figs. 7–11. another method named a sedimentation balance. The tray of a sed-
 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068 4059

Fig. 10. TEM photographs of Au, Al2O3, TiO2 and CuO particles and carbon nanofibers [41].

imentation balance is immersed in the fresh nano-suspension. The
weight of sediment nanoparticles during a certain period of time is
measured. The suspension fraction (Fs) of nanoparticles at an ac-
cepted time is calculated by the formula Fs = (W0  W)/W0 in which
W0 is the total weight of all nanoparticles in the measured space,
and W is the weight of the sediment nanoparticles at a certain time
[22].
4.7. Three omega method
The colloidal stability of nanofluid can also be determined by
the three omega method. It can be evaluated by detecting the ther-
mal conductivity growth caused by the nanoparticle sedimentation
in a wide nanoparticle volume fraction range. There are a few sta-
bility measurements attributed to this method in the literature
[59,76,111].
5. Characteristic measurement
There are four major thermophysical properties that change
their values due to nanoparticle addition to the host fluid which
is thermal conductivity, viscosity, density and specific heat. Differ-
ent investigators have unlike ideas about the effect of nanoparticle
dispersion. Typically, these nanofluid properties will increase ex-
cept for the specific heat which decreases. The percentage of incre-
4060 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068
Fig. 11. Bright field TEM micrographs of ZnO aggregates from (a) As-mixed suspension from powder A, (b) same suspension, ultrasonically agitated for 60 min with horn, (c)
as-mixed suspension from powder B and (d) same suspension, ultrasonically agitated for 60 min with horn [64].
ment will vary as the function of dispersion, volume concentration,
temperature, base fluid. There is not a standard for preparation of
nanofluid since then it would be obvious if the data will vary from
time to time.
5.1. Thermal conductivity
Thermal conductivity is the most important factor that can be
investigated to prove the heat transfer enhancement of a prepared
nanofluid. Reviewing available literature explains that the rise in
thermal conductivity of the nanofluids is large. Addition of only a
small volume percent of solids produces a dramatic enhance of
thermal conductivity [4,6,77,78].
Several mechanisms for this strange enhancement of thermal
conductivity have been already discussed. Among them, Brownian
motion, interfacial layer and aggregation of particles have been
talked about comprehensively [79–88]. Some researchers dis-
cussed a nanofluid as a two-phase flow mixture and utilized theo-
ries of a two-phase mixture or properties of nanofluid, such as
Maxwell’s theory [89] and the Hamilton and Crosser approach
Fig. 12. Aggregation effect on the effective thermal conductivity [10].
[90]. These models are based on an effective medium theory that
presumes well dispersed particles in a fluid medium. If aggregated
particles in the fluid bring about particle chains or clusters, the pre-
dicted thermal conductivity would be significantly higher as was
observed by many researchers [10,91] and might be of a strong
function of the aggregates dimension and the radius of gyration
of the aggregates. This result is based on the three-level homogeni-
zation theory, validated by MC (Monte Carlo) simulation of heat
conduction on model fractal aggregates [23,25,92]. As it can be
seen in Fig. 12, they related the enhancement of thermal conduc-
tivity to nanoparticle aggregation. It is seen that there should be
an optimized aggregation structure for achieving maximum ther-
mal conductivity, which is far beyond the prediction from homoge-
neous dispersions. Such an argument eliminates thermal
conductivity as an intrinsic physical characteristic. Possible influ-
ence of particle aggregation on conduction highlights the colloid
chemistry’s significant role in optimizing this property of nanofl-
uids. Meanwhile, there exists another theory of lowering thermal
conductivity of aggregation forming as found by Hong et al.
[26,110] from experiments by light scattering of Fe nanoparticles
aggregate.
The effective thermal conductivity increment may also depends
on the shape of nanoparticles as discussed by Zhou and Gao [93–
95]. They proposed a differential effective medium theory based
on Bruggeman’s model [79] to approximate the effective thermal
conductivity of nano-dispersion with nonspherical solid nanoparti-
cles with consideration of the interfacial thermal resistance across
the solid particles and the host fluids. They found that a high
enhancement of effective thermal conductivity can be gained if
the shape of nanoparticles deviates greatly from spherical.
Many of the researchers suggested altogether new mechanisms
for the transport of thermal energy [79]. There is another idea pro-
posed by Keblinski et al. [1] of an ordered liquid layer at particle
interfaces and ‘tunneling’ of heat-carrying phonons from one par-
ticle to another. The subsequent simulation work from the same
group of investigators concludes that these mechanisms do not
contribute considerably to heat transfer. Koo and Kleinstreuer
[96] found that the role of Brownian motion is much more signif-
icant than the thermophoretic and osmo-phoretic motions. In con-
 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068 4061

clusion, some investigators believe that nanoparticle aggregation
plays an important role in thermal transport due to their chain
shape [23,97] but some others believe that the time-dependent
thermal conductivity in the nanofluids proves the reduction of
thermal conductivity by passing time due to clustering of nanopar-
ticles with time [98].
Vadasz [72] showed that heat transfer enhancement may be
caused by a transient heat conduction process in nanofluids. Exper-
iments demonstrate that a nanofluids thermal conductivity de-
pends on a great number of parameters, such as the chemical
composition of the solid particle and the base fluid, surfactants,
particle shape, size, concentration, polydispersity, etc., though the
exact variation trend of the conductivity with these factors has
not yet been found. Additionally, the temperature influences the
thermal conductivity of a nanofluid as shown in several studies
that have been carried out to see that effect on CuO, Al2O3, TiO2,
ZnO dispersed nanofluids by Mintsa et al. [38], Duangthongsuk
and Wongwises [39], Vajjha and Das [40], Murshed et al. [41], Yu
et al. [42] and Karthikeyan et al. [98]. A temperature increase im-
proves the thermal conductivity of the nanofluids. However, the
actual mechanism of this increment has not been revealed yet. A
deficiency of reliable data for the conductivity of nanofluid is the
major problem of non-commercialization for this product.
The other influencing factor for the thermal conductivity in-
crease of nanosuspension is the volume fraction which has been di-
rectly proportional with this characteristic [31], although this
relationship is generally nonlinear for nanoparticles with a high as-
pect ratio [99]. Thermal conductivity increment data for DI (De-
Ionized) water based suspensions were investigated by Wang
et al. [80], which showed a high rise in comparison with the results
of Lee et al. [100] and Das et al. [101]. Moreover, experiments con-
ducted by Oh et al. [59] for EG based nanofluids data showed rel-
atively low thermal conductivity values compared to those of Lee
et al. [100] and Wang et al. [80].
It has been found that the thermal conductivity of a base fluid is
nearly constant at different doses of surfactant or base. Hence it
seems that this property improvement is related only to the parti-
cles when dispersing the nanoparticles into water. The general
behavior of the particle-water interaction depends on the proper-
ties of the particle surface. Addition of surfactant may cause high
or low pH value, which result in a lower surface charge and a
weaker repulsion between particles. Therefore, this action leads
to a stronger coagulation [29].
Yimin et al. [81] developed a classic theory of Brownian motion
and the Diffusion Limited Aggregation (DLA) model for random
movement of suspended nanoparticles. This theory does not
describe the experimentally determined thermal conductivity sat-
isfactorily, however, the dependence of this characteristic on tem-
perature is also mentioned in their work.
The effect of particle surface charge and IEP is also exposed in
varying thermal conductivity experiment sets conducted by Lee
et al. [53]. They proved that the colloidal particles get more stable
and enhance thermal conductivity of nanofluid when the pH of
the solution goes far from the IEP of particles. Moreover, research,
demonstrated that there is a priority factor in controlling nano-
fluid aggregation by surface charge. They proposed a new inter-
pretation of the charged sites and ion densities in the diffuse
layer as the number and efficiency of channels for phonon trans-
port, respectively. The same theory was accepted by Wang et al.
[57,29,21].
In conclusion, understanding the mechanism and magnitude of
effective thermal conductivity (keff) of nano-scale colloidal suspen-
sions still continues to be an active research area. A summary of
experiments and proposed theories is given in Table 7.
5.1.1. Analytical model
Even though many models have been developed to predict the
nanofluid thermal conductivity, all presented models can be classi-
fied into two general groups, as follows:
i. static models such as those of Maxwell and Hamilton–
Crosser, which presume immobile nanoparticles in the host
fluid in which conduction-based models predict the thermal
transport properties, and
ii. dynamic models, which are based on the idea that nanopar-
ticles have sideways, arbitrary movement in the fluid. The
particle motion is believed to be responsible for energy
transport directly through collision between nanoparticles
or indirectly through micro liquid convection that enhances
the thermal energy transfer.
A simple relationship suggested by Weber shows the thermal
conductivity of liquids with accuracy usually within 15% and the
equation is:
 q 13
k ¼ 3:59  109 C p q ð4Þ
M
This formula has been developed previously to calculate the ther-
mal conductivity of nanofluids [28], as:
 13
qnf
knf ¼ 3:59  109 C p;nf qnf ð5Þ
M nf

Table 7
Summary of different tests that conduct to a theory.

Investigator Nanofluid type Concentration Thermal conductivity Theory

(%) enhancement
Karthikeyan CuO 1 vol.% 31.6% Nanoparticle size, polydispersity, particle clustering and the volume fraction of
et al. [98] (8 nm) + DW + EG 54% particles
Kwak et al. [102] CuO (10– <0.002 vol.% Thermal conductivity enhancement due to viscosity increase
30 nm) + EG
Lee et al. [53] CuO 0.3 vol.% 3 times increasing Setting pH far from isoelectric point getting 3 times effective thermal
(25 nm) + DW conductivity and better dispersion
pH from 8 to 3
Wang et al. [57] Al2O3 (15– 0.4 wt.% 13% pH control and adding surfactant far from isoelectric point
50 nm) + DW
Cu(25– 15%
60 nm) + DW

Li et al. [21] Cu + DW 0.1 wt.% 10.7% pH control and adding surfactant far from isoelectric point
Zhu et al. [22] Graphite 2.0 vol.% 34% pH control and adding surfactant far from isoelectric point
(106 nm) + DW
Wei et al. [49] Cu2O 0.01– 24% Thermal conductivity can be controlled by either the synthesis parameters or
(200.5 nm) + DW 0.05 vol.% its temperature
4062 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068

By supposing well dispersed nanoparticles, the thermo-physical Brownian approach for very low nanoparticle volume fractions
properties of the particle fluid mixture can be evaluated using and by effective diameter for micro-particles and/or high particle
Eqs. (6)–(8). Properties with subscript ‘‘s’’ are for nanoparticles volume fractions [104]. The schematic of this model is presented
while without subscripts are for base fluid in Fig. 13. Likewise, Hadjov et al. [55] assumed a flux jump and a
discontinuity between the inclusion and the matrix as well which
qnf ¼ ð1  UÞq þ Uqs ð6Þ is called the thermal conductive interface. This assumption con-
ðqC p Þnf ¼ ð1  UÞqC p þ Uqs C p;s ð7Þ flicts with the previous model. They stated that the thermal con-
M nf ¼ ð1  UÞM þ UM s ð8Þ ductivity depends strongly on the morphology via the kind of
particle packing.
The effective thermal conductivity is defined as the ratio of the ther-
mal conductivity of nanofluid to that of the base fluid. Therefore,
from Eqs. (4) and (5), the generalized form of relative thermal con-
5.1.2. Measurement apparatus
ductivity can be given as:
The measurement of thermal conductivity of liquids is a chal-
     lenging task. In general, Fourier’s law of heat conduction is
knf C p;nf a qnf b M c
¼ ð9Þ exploited for the measurement of thermal conductivity.
k Cp q M nf
The thermal conductivity of nanofluids can be measured by dif-
In which a, b and c should be defined from experiments and are ferent methods, including transient hot-wire (THW, also called
equal to 0.023, 1.358 and 0.126, respectively for Al2O3/water transient line heat source method) which are further categorized
nanofluids. Yimin et al. [81,103] proposed a formula for the effec- into a basic transient hot-wire method, insulated wire method
tive thermal conductivity in conjugate with Brownian motion and and liquid metal wire method [5,108,109]. A detailed explanation
DLA theory as follows: of the transient hot wire method in measuring the thermal conduc-
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi tivity of nanofluids is given by Lee et al. [100]. Also, a summary of
keff kp þ 2kf  2Uðkf  kp Þ qp UC p kB T the apparatus utilized for thermophysical properties by different
¼ þ ð10Þ investigators is given in Table 9.
kf kp þ 2kf þ Uðkf  kp Þ 2kf 3pr c g
Among the stated techniques, the steady state parallel plate
where kf, kp, q, Cp, T, g, U and rc are the actual thermal conductivity method used by Wang et al. [80] seems to be least affected by
of the base liquid and the nanoparticle, density, specific heat, tem- the particle sedimentation for their thickness of the loaded sample
perature (K), viscosity, volume concentration and the radius of the fluid is less than one mm. The sedimentation of nanofluids can af-
cluster, respectively. fect the THW method used by Lee et al. [100]. An increment of the
Meibodi et al. [104] described the model of thermal barrier temperature gradient within the vertical hot wire may be caused
resistance and claimed that the most important factor for thermal by non-homogeneous nanoparticle concentration which might be
conductivity enhancement of nanofluids might be MFP (Mean Free a source of measurement errors. This is also true for the
Path), the distance between particles that can be calculated by temperature oscillation technique by Das et al. [101] where the

Fig. 13. Schematic modeling of a homogeneous suspension containing spherical mono-sized particle with resistance model [104].

Table 8
Most applicable models for viscosity of nanofluids [31].

No. Model Equation Remarks

1 Einstein lr ¼ llnf ¼ 1 þ gU Applicable when U < 1% and when there is no interaction between the particles
model
2 Batchelor lr ¼ llnf ¼ 1 þ gU þ ðgUÞ2 Brownian motion of the nanoparticles and the interaction between them was taken into account in this
model model and it is an extension of the Einstein model
3 Ward model lr ¼ llnf ¼ 1 þ gU þ ðgUÞ2 þ ðgUÞ3 An exponential model for U up to 35%
4 Renewed lr ¼ llnf ¼ 1 þ gUe þ ðgUe Þ2 þ ðgUe Þ3 The influence of liquid layering is taken into account to calculate U, U is replaced by Ue
Ward model
 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068
Table 9
Equipments used for characteristic measurements.
Investigator Nanofluid Thermal conductivity Viscosity
[132] CuO + CT THW (Assael et al., 2004) Rheometer with coaxial cylinders
AB (HaakeRheostress RS600)
Al2O3
CNT
TiO2
[31] Al2O3 + DW KD2 Pro (Decagon Brookfield cone and plate viscometer
Devices, Inc., USA) (LVDV-I PRIME C/P)
[12] TiO2 + DW THW Bohlin rotational rheometer
[57] Al2O3 + DW TPS Capillary viscometer
Cu + DW
[49] Cu2O + DW KD2 system
[133] KD2 system Bohlin CVO rheometer
[134] KD2 pro Ubbeholder capillary viscometer (Fisher
Scientific)
thermocouple that measures the fluid temperature oscillation lies
in the upper half of the nanofluid chamber [59].
The 3x method is exploited by the small number of investiga-
tors; a thin film heater is powered by an AC power source so there
is an oscillating heat transfer rate through the material, whose
thermal conductivity is to be measured. The three omega wire
method may be suitable to measure temperature-dependent ther-
mal conductivity [112].
5.2. Viscosity
The viscosity is the other vital factor in designing dynamic
nanofluid for heat transfer applications as the pressure drop and
the resulting pumping power depend on it. In comparison with
the works carried out on thermal conductivity of nanofluids, only
a few studies have been reported on the rheological behavior of
nanofluids. Kang et al. [113] measured the viscosities of UDD
(ultradispersed diamond)/ethylene glycol, silver/water, and silica/
water nanofluids and found the viscosity increment of 50%, 30%
and 20% for UDD/EG, silver/water and silica/water nanofluids at
volume concentrations of 1%, 2% and 3%, respectively. Prasher
et al. [114] showed the independence of the viscosity to shear rate
for alumina/propylene glycol (PG) nanofluids. This proves the
Newtonian nature of nanofluid and viscosity growth by increasing
nanoparticle volume concentration. They found a 30% increase in
viscosity at 3% volume concentration and related this phenomenon
to aggregation of the nanoparticles in the nanofluid with the size of
the aggregates of around three times the size of the individual
nanoparticles. The effect due to temperature and particle volume
concentration on the dynamic viscosity for an Al2O3/water nano-
fluid has been experimentally investigated by Nguyen et al.
[115]. They found a significant increase in nanofluid dynamic vis-
cosity with particle volume concentration and an obvious decline
with a temperature increase. In their experiments, another factor
emerged, which is known as a critical temperature. Beyond that
temperature, the properties of particle suspension seem to be var-
ied, which leads to a hysteresis phenomenon. This fact has raised
serious doubts about the reliability of using nanofluids for heat
transfer enhancement purposes. Murshed et al. [48] measured rel-
ative viscosity data for TiO2 and Al2O3/water-based nanofluids, and
reported a maximum increase of 80% at 4% and 5% particle volume
fraction, respectively. Similar increments in viscosity were re-
ported earlier by Masuda et al. [116] and Wang et al. [80]. Xie
et al. [117] ran experiments for nanoparticles dispersed in organic
fluids like EG and showed that the increase for the viscosity of
Al2O3/EG nanofluids is smaller than those of water based suspen-
sions, indicating the important effect of the base fluid on nanofluid
4063
Specific heat Density Surface tension
DSC (Setaram Weighting a known Pendant drop (KSV
C80D) volume of nanofluid CAM 200)
– – –
– – –
viscosity. They also studied the dependence of the viscosity on the
pH values. But when the pH value is close to PZC, it causes coagu-
lation of nanoparticles and therefore a viscosity increment. Namb-
uru et al. [118] presented some experiments for rheological
behavior of CuO/EG and water based nanofluid over temperatures
ranging from 35 °C to 50 °C. Kwak and Kim [102] demonstrated
that large thermal conductivity enhancements are accompanied
by sharp viscosity increases at low (<1%) nanoparticle volume frac-
tions, which is a logical consequence of aggregation effects.
There are theoretical models to calculate the ratio of effective
viscosity of nanofluids to that of base fluid. A few of the frequently
used models [119,120] which have their limitations and applica-
tions are listed in Table 8. Murshed et al. [48] showed that the
measured viscosities of Al2O3/water and TiO2/water nanofluids
were under predicted by the Krieger–Dougherty (K–D) model. In
contrast, Chen et al. [121] showed that the viscosity of nanofluids
can be predicted by the Krieger–Dougherty model if the volume
concentration is replaced by the volume concentration of nanopar-
ticle aggregates. In relation to their experiments, for spherical
nanoparticles, an aggregate size of approximately three times the
primary nanoparticle size gives the best fit with the experimental
data. Chen et al. [121] proposed a categorization for the rheological
behavior of nanofluids into four groups as (i) dilute nanofluids
(with volume concentration less than 0.1%) whose viscosity fits
the Einstein equation and there is no visible shear-thinning behav-
ior; (ii) semi-dilute nanofluids (with 0.1–5% volume concentration)
with aggregation of nanoparticles, whose viscosity fits the modi-
fied K–D equation and there is no obvious shear-thinning behavior;
(iii) semi-concentrated nanofluids (with 5–10% volume concentra-
tion) with aggregation of nanoparticles whose viscosity fits the
modified K–D equation and there is noticeable shear-thinning
behavior; and (iv) concentrated nanofluids (with volume concen-
tration more than 10%) with interpenetration of aggregation
and this is out of the normal concentration range of nanofluids
[31,63].
There is a concern about different experimental results for vis-
cosity as shown by Pak and Cho [122] for 13 nm particle-size data
are much higher than all other results while Wang et al. [80] data
are relatively low. Nguyen et al. [123] claimed that it is compli-
cated to sketch any certain clarification about such results, apart
from saying that this interesting behavior may be related to vari-
ous factors such as different nanofluid preparation methods.
5.2.1. Analytical models
In the case of aqueous nanofluid preparation, viscosity data col-
lection should be accompanied with distilled water in which mea-
sured data have to be compared by the following correlation [124]:
4064 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068
 
1:12646  0:039638  ðTÞ
lbf  104 ¼ exp
1  0:00729769  ðTÞ
where T (K) is the fluid temperature and l in cP [123,125].
There are a few theoretical formulas that can be used to approx-
imate nanofluid viscosities. Almost all such formulas have been de-
rived from the original work of Einstein (1906) which is based on
the assumption of a linearly viscous fluid containing a dilute, sus-
pension of spherical particles. The energy dissipated by the fluid
flow around a single particle was calculated by Einstein in this arti-
cle, and associated with that the work required moving this parti-
cle relatively to the surrounding fluid, he obtained:
lnf
lr ¼ ¼ 1 þ 2:5U
lbf
Einstein’s formula was found to be applicable to relatively low par-
ticle volume fractions, U < 2%. Beyond this value, it underestimates
the effective viscosity of the resulting mixture as it ignores particle–
particle interaction. Since the publication of Einstein’s work, many
researchers have contributed to the ‘correction’ of his formula.
Based on the assumption of a very slow flow, inertial effect in the
fluid has been considered negligible by the authors in most of these
works, which technicality makes linearity for the equations of mo-
tion. Two factors were frequently employed to ‘correct’ Einstein’s
result: the first is that the particles may not be small, and the sec-
ond is that the structure of the particles within the continuous
phase may also affect the viscosity of the mixture. A brief review
of the relevant works is given below. There exists an extended Ein-
stein’s formula for use with moderate particle concentrations pro-
posed by Brinkman [126], as follows:
lnf 1 ple, viscosities for 36 nm are slightly higher than those of 47 nm;
¼ ð13Þ
lbf ð1  UÞ2:5
Frankel and Acrivos [127] proposed the following formula:
" #
lnf 9 ðU=Um Þ1=3
¼ 
lbf 8 1  ðU=Um Þ1=3
where Um is the experimental value for the maximum particle vol-
ume fraction. Alternatively, Lundgren [128] has offered the subse-
quent equation as a Taylor series in U:
lnf 25 2
¼ 1 þ 2:5U þ U þ 0ðU3 Þ
lbf 4 ity to temperature by investigators. The correlation of Kulkarni et al.
Clearly, if the terms O (U2) or higher are neglected, the above for-
mula reduces to that of Einstein. Batchelor [129], in his notional
analysis, considered the effect due to the Brownian motion of parti-
cles on the bulk stress of an approximately isotropic suspension of
rigid and spherical particles. He proposed the following formula:
lnf
¼ 1 þ 2:5U þ 6:5U2
lbf
Graham [130] has proposed the following formula as a generalized
form of the Frankel and Acrivos [127] formula that agrees well with
Einstein’s for small U:
2 3
lnf 6 1 7
¼ 1 þ 2:5U þ 4:54   2 5
lbf h h h
 2 þ dP  1 þ dP
dP
where dp is the particle radius and h is the inter-particle spacing.
In fact, practically none of the above mentioned models can de-
scribe the viscosity of nanofluids exactly in a wide range of the
nanoparticle volume fractions. Nguyen et al. [115] found that the
conditional formula, including Einstein’s formula and the ones pro-
posed by Brinkman[126], Lundgren [128] and Batchelor had all
underestimated the nanofluids viscosity even for a relatively low
ð11Þ
particle fraction. They also suggested two correlations for Al2O3
aqueous nanofluids consisting of 47 and 36 nm nanoparticles as
follows:
lnf
¼ 0:904e0:483U for 47 nm Al2 O3 ð18Þ
lbf
lnf
¼ ð1 þ 0:025U þ 0:015U2 Þ for 36 nm Al2 O3 ð19Þ
lbf
Lee [73] synthesized aqueous nanofluids containing low volume
concentrations of Al2O3 nanoparticles in the 0.01–0.3 volume per-
centage. His viscosity measurements showed that there was a con-
ð12Þ siderable decline with temperature increase. In addition, the
measured viscosities of the mentioned nanofluids showed a nonlin-
ear relation with the concentration even in the low volume concen-
tration (0.01–0.3%) range, in contrast with the Einstein model which
predicts a linear relation and therefore it severely underestimates
the viscosity.
The temperature as another important factor other than the vol-
ume fraction influences the viscosity of nanofluids. There are lim-
ited researches about the dependence of viscosity on temperature;
whereas it is interesting to observe that for particle concentrations
lower than 4%, all tested nanofluids exhibit almost constant rela-
tive viscosities that are independent of temperature. Between the
two alumina–water nanofluids, just a slight difference in the levels
of relative viscosity arises. Such differences, however, become
much more visible at higher particle fractions, e.g. for 7% and 9%,
where we can observe not only a temperature dependence, but a
particle-size-dependence as well. The effect of particle-size ap-
pears somewhat paradoxical: for a particle fraction of 7% for exam-
while for a 9% volume fraction, the reverse behavior is found.
For Al2O3–water and CuO–water nanofluids, the following for-
mulas have been proposed to compute the dynamic viscosity for
all three nanofluids and particle concentrations tested [123]:
ð14Þ
lnf
¼ 1:1250  0:0007  T ð20Þ
lbf
lnf
¼ 2:1275  0:0215  T þ 0:0002  T 2 ð21Þ
lbf
There are also other correlations proposed for dependence of viscos-
ð15Þ
[131] related the viscosity of CuO–water nanofluids with the tem-
perature in the range of 5–50 °C:
 
1
ln ls ¼ A B ð22Þ
T
Here A and B are the functions of volume percentage U. Since this
correlation is obtained for an aqueous solution, it is not valid for
ð16Þ
subzero temperature range. Praveen [132] derived an exponential
model for CuO–water nanofluids with base fluid of 60:40 (by
weight) ethylene glycol and water mixture as follows:
logðls Þ ¼ AeBT ð23Þ
where ls is the CuO-water nanofluid viscosity in (cP), T is the tem-
ð17Þ perature in K and A, B are functions of particle volume percentage
U. It should be noted that some discrepancy appeared among a
few studies on the rheology of nanofluids [114,133] which showed
the Newtonian behavior of nanofluids while others observed
noticeable non-Newtonian behavior [134]. Prasher’s results [114]
depicted that the normalized shear viscosity has a linear relation-
ship with the nanoparticle volume fractions, whereas investigations
of Nguyen et al. [115] for particle volume fractions lower than 4%,
the viscosity of CuO–water is approximately the same as that of
 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068
the alumina–water nanofluids considered earlier, though for higher
particle loading, the increase in viscosity with respect to particle
concentration is clearly much greater. Such great values of viscosity
may result from the intrinsic molecular structure of the mixture it-
self and the particular chemical dispersing agents used.
These discrepancies between investigations might be due to dif-
ferent volume concentration, type of nanoparticles, chemical prop-
erties of base fluids and nanoparticle preparation method. As
shown by Ko et al. [135], nanofluids prepared by the acid treat-
ment (TCNT) have much lower viscosity than the ones made with
surfactant (PCNT). Also, we can see that the use of the Batchelor
[129] and Brinkman [126] formulas for CuO–water nanofluid is
inappropriate. Therefore, the following correlation was proposed
for computing CuO–water viscosity:
lr ¼ 1:475  0:319U þ 0:051U2 þ 0:009U3
Fullman [136] and Noni et al. [137] derived a formula from the
model of the mean free path for relative viscosity of suspensions
of solid particles in a liquid medium as:
1 ticle concentration to equalize the heat transfer enhancement
lr ¼ 1 þ a
kn
where the constants a and n depend on material characteristics
while the mean free path (k) is defined as:
2 ð1  UÞ
k¼ d ð26Þ
3 U
Substituting Eq. (26) in Eq. (25) and for a given particle size,
 n
U
lr ¼ 1 þ b
1U
This model (Eq. (27)) which considers the mean free path is used to
predict the effective viscosity of Al2O3/water nanofluids [31].
5.3. Density
The key parameters for assessing the heat transfer merits of
nanofluids are their thermo physical properties. The mixture prop-
erties of nanofluids are normally expressed in volume percent U
while the loading analysis was obtained in weight percent (wt).
The conversion between the weight and volume fractions is done
through the bulk density qp
wqf
U¼
qP ð1  wÞ þ wqf
5.4. Specific heat
Thermal conductivity studies have been the main focus of nano-
fluid investigations, and certain efforts have also been done on the
viscosity of nanofluids. The density has been reported to be consis-
tent with the mixing theory. However, the specific heat Cp of nano-
fluids has received very little attention [141].
The heat capacity of the nanofluid is incorporated into the
energy equation, so it is important to be able to calculate it accu-
rately. Most researchers use one of two correlations, which are in
Eqs. (29) and (30), The first model is based on the volume fraction
whereas the second model is based on heat capacity concept. Both
models are often cited by a number of researchers for calculating
the specific heat of nanofluid.
Pak and Cho model [122]
c ¼ ð1  UÞcbf þ Ucp
and Xuan and Roetzel model [142].
4065
ð1  UÞðqcÞbf þ UðqcÞp
c¼ ð30Þ
q
Where c is the heat capacity, U is the volume fraction of nanopar-
ticles, and q is the density. The subscript bf refers to properties of
the base fluid, and the subscript p refers to properties of the nano-
particles. Eq. (29) is simply the rule of mixtures applied to heat
capacity; while Eq. (30) is an altered form. It clearly shows that
the specific heat decreased with increasing nanoparticle concentra-
tions [10,141].
In some investigations, the influence of nanoparticles on the
specific heat of nanofluid seems too small to be considered due
to the low nanoparticle volume fraction.
ð24Þ 6. Conclusion
The present outlook is the first and inclusive review on the re-
search progress made in the stability of the nanofluids. Nanofluid
preparation with a single and two-step method would definitely
affect the stability as the two-step method needs a higher nanopar-
ð25Þ
reached by single step. A higher concentration causes more sedi-
mentation. However, unfortunately, the single step method is not
industrialized in a wide range so experiments are mostly con-
ducted by two-step method. Therefore, higher costs and lower sta-
bility are inevitable.
Major factors influencing the extraordinary enhancement of
heat transfer are listed as chemical composition of the solid parti-
cle and the basefluid, particle source and concentration, particle
shape and size, surfactants, temperature, pH value (surface
ð27Þ charge), monodispersity, IEP and elapsed time.
Comparing several studies in the literature, some discrepancies
appear among the results. At this moment, it cannot be clearly ex-
plained why incongruities take place among the measurements of
the nanofluid characteristics such as thermal conductivity and vis-
cosity. However, at least we are able to mention that different
sources of measurement uncertainties such as sedimentation and
aggregation of nanoparticle, lack of a standard for nanofluid prep-
aration, different source of nanoparticle manufacturing, various
stabilization methods, and time duration between the nanofluids
preparation and measurement in which cause the aggregate to
grow with time, could be the most important reasons for the dis-
persed data. Furthermore, the timing for the ultrasonic processes
such as horn processor or ultrasonic bath is not optimized properly
ð28Þ with respect to different nanoparticles and base fluids.
There is also another important result regarding stability and
thermal conductivity that more stable nanofluid does not necessar-
ily have more enhanced characteristics.
Three methods of homogenization are used by researchers and
bring about various results. It can be mentioned that different
nanoparticles need their own stability method. Sometimes, these
methods have to be combined together while in other cases just
one method would be adequate to obtain the preferred stability.
Surfactant selection in nanofluid preparation has an important
role in improving heat transfer. Temperature is considered as a re-
stricted factor in case of nanofluid application for exploiting at the
high temperatures. Likewise, the optimum percentage of surfac-
tant should be considered as a factor in stable nanofluid prepara-
tion as well.
Ultrasonication method, particularly the more effective one
named horn ultrasonic, attracts much attention for its short timing
preparation among the other homogenization techniques. It has to
be considered that if a critical time is exceeded, it may have an in-
ð29Þ
verse effect and cause agglomeration and speedy sedimentation of
nanoparticles.
4066 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068
The pH control, which has an important role in stability control,
places the IEP of the suspension, far from the PZC in order to avoid
coagulation and instability. It should be taking into account that
acidic or alkaline pH is corrosive to metals. Therefore, it can lead
to damage to the piping and instrumentation in long term
applications.
In support of stability measurement, it is better to examine at
least three different tests with the different stability measurement
apparatus to come out with a reasonable result regarding stability.
Furthermore, reproducibility is important in experiments so the
samples have to be run at least three times to meet the require-
ments of uncertainties.
Among the characteristics discussed in the literature, thermal
conductivity and viscosity have a major role in nanofluid charac-
terization. To reach the best hypothesis for thermal conductivity
enhancement, different theories were discussed such as Brownian
motion, interfacial layer and aggregation of particles. Additionally,
some researchers discussed nanofluid as a two-phase flow mixture
and utilized certain formulas of two-phase mixtures for properties
of nanofluid. However, still none of the proposed theories can ex-
actly predict the improvement of thermal conductivity of nano-
fluid. Although there are some results regarding the viscosity of
nanofluids, none is usable across a wide range of volume fractions
of nano particles so further experiments are required.
Systematic experiments are needed that will show the effect of
the stability on heat transfer mechanism and characteristics
enhancement in stationary condition. Refer to other thermophysi-
cal properties, including, specific heat and density, a few research-
ers conducted tests as the correlations satisfied the result of
experiments.
References
[1] P. Keblinski, J.A. Eastman, D.G. Cahill, Nanofluids for thermal transport, Mater.
Today 8 (6) (2005) 36–44.
[2] S.U.S. Choi, J.A. Eastman, Enhancing thermal conductivity of fluids with
nanoparticles, in: Conference: 1995 International Mechanical Eengineering
Congress and Exhibition, San Francisco, CA (United States), 12-17 Nov 1995,
ASME, San Francisco, 1995, pp. 99–105.
[3] R.J. Goldstein, D.D. Joseph, D.H. Pui, Convective Heat Transport in Nanofluids,
proposal, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, University of
Minnesota, Minnesota, September 2000.
[4] V. Trisaksri, S. Wongwises, Critical review of heat transfer characteristics of
the nanofluids, Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 11 (2007) 512–523.
[5] M.P. Beck, Thermal Conductivity of Metal Oxide Nanofluids, Georgia Institute
of Technology, Georgia, 2008.
[6] X.-Q. Wang, A.S. Mujumdar, Heat transfer characteristics of nanofluids: a
review, Int. J. Therm. Sci. 46 (1) (2007) 1–19.
[7] W. Duangthongsuk, S. Wongwises, A critical review of convective heat
transfer of nanofluids, Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 11 (2007) 797–817.
[8] L. Godson, B. Raja, D. Mohan Lal, S. Wongwises, Enhancement of heat transfer
using nanofluids – an overview, Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 14 (2) (2010)
629–641.
[9] Y. Li, J.e. Zhou, S. Tung, E. Schneider, S. Xi, A review on development of
nanofluid preparation and characterization, Powder Technol. 196 (2) (2009)
89–101.
[10] D. Wen, G. Lin, S. Vafaei, K. Zhang, Review of nanofluids for heat transfer
applications, Particuology 7 (2) (2009) 141–150.
[11] K.Y. Leong, R. Saidur, S.N. Kazi, A.H. Mamun, Performance investigation of an
automotive car radiator operated with nanofluid-based coolants (nanofluid
as a coolant in a radiator), Appl. Therm. Eng. 30 (17-18) (2010) 2685–2692.
[12] W. Duangthongsuk, S. Wongwises, Comparison of the effects of measured and
computed thermophysical properties of nanofluids on heat transfer
performance, Exp. Therm. Fluid Sci. 34 (5) (2010) 616–624.
[13] P.C. Hiemenz, M. Dekker, Principles of colloid and surface chemistry, Second
ed., Dekker, New York, 1986.
[14] D. Wu, H. Zhu, L. Wang, L. Liua, Critical issues in nanofluids preparation,
characterization and thermal conductivity, Curr. Nanosci. 5 (2009) 103–112.
[15] S.K. Das, S.U.S. Choi, W.H. Yu, T. Pradeep, nanofluid: Science and Technology,
John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2007.
[16] E.J. Swanson, J. Tavares, S. Coulombe, Improved dual-plasma process for the
synthesis of coated or functionalized metal nanoparticles, IEEE Trans. Plasma
Sci. 36 (4) (2008) 886–887.
[17] S.K. Das, S.U.S. Choi, H.E. Patel, Heat Transfer in Nanofluids – a review, Heat
Transfer Eng. 27 (10) (2006) 3–19.
[18] H. Chang, C. Jwo, P. Fan, S. Pai, Process optimization and material properties
for nanofluid manufacturing, Int. J. Adv. Manuf. Technol. 34 (3) (2007) 300–
306.
[20] Y. Hwang, H.S. Park, J.K. Lee, W.H. Jung, Thermal conductivity and lubrication
characteristics of nanofluids, Curr. Appl Phys. 6 (Suppl. 1) (2006) e67–e71.
[21] X.F. Li, D.S. Zhu, X.J. Wang, N. Wang, J.W. Gao, H. Li, Thermal conductivity
enhancement dependent pH and chemical surfactant for Cu–H2O nanofluids,
Thermochim. Acta 469 (1–2) (2008) 98–103.
[22] H. Zhu, C. Zhang, Y. Tang, J. Wang, B. Ren, Y. Yin, Preparation and thermal
conductivity of suspensions of graphite nanoparticles, Carbon 45 (1) (2007)
226–228.
[23] W. Evans, R. Prasher, J. Fish, P. Meakin, P. Phelan, P. Keblinski, Effect of
aggregation and interfacial thermal resistance on thermal conductivity of
nanocomposites and colloidal nanofluids, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 51 (5-6)
(2008) 1431–1438.
[24] J. Philip, P.D. Shima, B. Raj, Enhancement of thermal conductivity in
magnetite based nanofluid due to chainlike structures, Appl. Phys. Lett. 91
(20) (2007) 203103–203108.
[25] P.E. Gharagozloo, K.E. Goodson, Aggregate fractal dimensions and thermal
conduction in nanofluids, J. Appl. Phys. 108 (7) (2010) 074307–074309.
[26] K.S. Hong, T.K. Hong, H.S. Yang, Thermal conductivity of Fe nanofluids
depending on the cluster size of nanoparticles, Appl. Phys. Lett. 88 (3) (2006)
1–3.
[27] H. Chang, Y.C. Wu, X.Q. Chen, M.J. Kao, Fabrication of Cu Based Nanofluid with
Superior Dispersion, 2006, www.ntut.edu.tw.
[28] D. Zhu, X. Li, N. Wang, X. Wang, J. Gao, H. Li, Dispersion behavior and thermal
conductivity characteristics of Al2O3–H2O nanofluids, Curr. Appl Phys. 9 (1)
(2009) 131–139.
[29] X.-j. Wang, D.-s. Zhu, S. yang, Investigation of pH and SDBS on enhancement
of thermal conductivity in nanofluids, Chem. Phys. Lett. 470 (1–3) (2009)
107–111.
[30] M.N. Pantzali, A.G. Kanaris, K.D. Antoniadis, A.A. Mouza, S.V. Paras, Effect of
nanofluids on the performance of a miniature plate heat exchanger with
modulated surface, Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow 30 (4) (2009) 691–699.
[31] M. Chandrasekar, S. Suresh, A. Chandra Bose, Experimental investigations and
theoretical determination of thermal conductivity and viscosity of Al2O3/
water nanofluid, Exp. Therm. Fluid Sci. 34 (2) (2010) 210–216.
[32] M.J. Assael, I.N. Metaxa, J. Arvanitidis, D. Christofilos, C. Lioutas, Thermal
conductivity enhancement in aqueous suspensions of carbon multi-walled
and double-walled nanotubes in the presence of two different dispersants,
Int. J. Thermophys. 26 (3) (2005) 647–664.
[33] X. Wei, T. Kong, H. Zhu, L. Wang, CuS/Cu2S nanofluids: synthesis and thermal
conductivity, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 53 (9-10) (2010) 1841–1843.
[34] M.E. Meibodi, M. Vafaie-Sefti, A.M. Rashidi, A. Amrollahi, M. Tabasi, H.S. Kalal,
The role of different parameters on the stability and thermal conductivity of
carbon nanotube/water nanofluids, Int. Commun. Heat Mass Transfer 37 (3)
(2010) 319–323.
[35] Y. Hwang, J.K. Lee, C.H. Lee, Y.M. Jung, S.I. Cheong, C.G. Lee, B.C. Ku, S.P. Jang,
Stability and thermal conductivity characteristics of nanofluids, Thermochim.
Acta 455 (1-2) (2007) 70–74.
[36] H. Jin, W. Xianju, L. Qiong, W. Xueyi, Z. Yunjin, L. Liming, Influence of pH on
the Stability Characteristics of Nanofluids, in: Symposium on Photonics and
Optoelectronics, 2009, SOPO 2009, 2009, pp. 1–4.
[37] L. Jiang, L. Gao, J. Sun, Production of aqueous colloidal dispersions of carbon
nanotubes, J. Colloid Interface Sci. 260 (1) (2003) 89–94.
[38] Y. Hwang, J.-K. Lee, J.-K. Lee, Y.-M. Jeong, S.-i. Cheong, Y.-C. Ahn, S.H. Kim,
Production and dispersion stability of nanoparticles in nanofluids, Powder
Technol. 186 (2) (2008) 145–153.
[39] J. Lee, Convection Performance of Nanofluids for Electronics Cooling, Ph.D.,
Stanford University, United States – California, 2009.
[40] Y.J. Hwang, Y.C. Ahn, H.S. Shin, C.G. Lee, G.T. Kim, H.S. Park, J.K. Lee,
Investigation on characteristics of thermal conductivity enhancement of
nanofluids, Curr. Appl Phys. 6 (6) (2006) 1068–1071.
[41] X. Zhang, H. Gu, M. Fujii, Effective thermal conductivity and thermal
diffusivity of nanofluids containing spherical and cylindrical nanoparticles,
Exp. Thermal Fluid Sci. 31 (6) (2007) 593–599.
[42] W. Yu, H. Xie, L. Chen, Y. Li, Enhancement of thermal conductivity of
kerosene-based Fe3O4 nanofluids prepared via phase-transfer method,
Colloids Surface A: Physicochem. Eng. Aspects 355 (1–3) (2010) 109–
113.
[43] I. Madni, C.-Y. Hwang, S.-D. Park, Y.-H. Choa, H.-T. Kim, Mixed surfactant
system for stable suspension of multiwalled carbon nanotubes, Colloids
Surface A: Physicochem. Eng. Aspects 358 (1–3) (2010) 101–107.
[44] M. Sato, Y. Abe, Y. Urita, R. Di Paola, A. Cecere, R. Savino, Thermal performance
of self-rewetting fluid heat pipe containing dilute solutions of polymer-
capped silver nanoparticles synthesized by microwave-polyol process, in:
Proceedings of the ITP2009, 2009.
[45] C. Walleck, Development of Steady-State, Parallel-Plate Thermal Conductivity
Apparatus for Poly-Nanofluids and Comparative Measurements with
Transient HWTC Apparatus, M.S., Northern Illinois University, United States
– Illinois, 2009.
[46] H.-t. Zhu, Y.-s. Lin, Y.-s. Yin, A novel one-step chemical method for
preparation of copper nanofluids, J. Colloid Interface Sci. 277 (1) (2004)
100–103.
[47] X.-Q. Wang, A.S. Mujumdar, A review on nanofluids. Part II: Experiments and
applications, Braz. J. Chem. Eng. 25 (2008) 631–648.
 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068
[48] S.M.S. Murshed, K.C. Leong, C. Yang, Investigations of thermal conductivity
and viscosity of nanofluids, Int. J. Therm. Sci. 47 (2008) 560–568.
[49] X. Wei, H. Zhu, T. Kong, L. Wang, Synthesis and thermal conductivity of Cu2O
nanofluids, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 52 (19–20) (2009) 4371–4374.
[50] J.-C. Chou, L.P. Liao, Study on pH at the point of zero charge of TiO2 pH ion-
sensitive field effect transistor made by the sputtering method, Thin Solid
Films 476 (1) (2005) 157–161.
[51] Y. Fovet, J.-Y. Gal, F. Toumelin-Chemla, Influence of pH and fluoride
concentration on titanium passivating layer: stability of titanium dioxide,
Talanta 53 (5) (2001) 1053–1063.
[52] J. Huang, X. Wang, influence of pH on the stability characteristics of nanofluid,
IEEE, 2009.
[53] D. Lee, J.-W. Kim, B.G. Kim, A new parameter to control heat transport in
nanofluids: surface charge state of the particle in suspension, J. Phys. Chem.
(2006) 4323–4328.
[54] H. Xie, H. Lee, W. Youn, M. Choi, Nanofluids containing multiwalled carbon
nanotubes and their enhanced thermal conductivities, J. Appl. Phys. 94 (8)
(2003) 4967–4971.
[55] K.B. Hadjov, Modified self-consisted scheme to predict the thermal
conductivity of nanofluids, Int. J. Therm. Sci. 48 (12) (2009) 2249–2254.
[56] K. Lee, Y. Hwang, S. Cheong, L. Kwon, S. Kim, J. Lee, Performance evaluation of
nano-lubricants of fullerene nanoparticles in refrigeration mineral oil, Curr.
Appl Phys. 9 (2, Suppl. 1) (2009) e128–e131.
[57] X.-J. Wang, X.-F. Li, Influence of pH on nanofluids’ viscosity and thermal
conductivity, Chin. Phys. Lett. 26 (5) (2009) 056601.
[58] B.R. Munson, D.F. Young, T.H. Okiishi, Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics, John
Wiley & Sons Inc., 1998.
[59] D.-W. Oh, A. Jain, J.K. Eaton, K.E. Goodson, J.S. Lee, Thermal conductivity
measurement and sedimentation detection of aluminum oxide nanofluids by
using the 3omega method, Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow 29 (5) (2008) 1456–1461.
[60] H. Patel, T. Sundararajan, T. Pradeep, A. Dasgupta, N. Dasgupta, S. Das, A
micro-convection model for thermal conductivity of nanofluids, Pramana 65
(5) (2005) 863–869.
[61] P.N. Das Sarit Kumar, Thiesen Peter, R. Wilfried, Temperature dependence of
thermal conductivity enhancement for nanofluids, J. Heat Transfer 125 (2003)
8.
[62] L.G. Asirvatham, N. Vishal, S.K. Gangatharan, D.M. Lal, Experimental study on
forced convective heat transfer with low volume fraction of CuO/water
nanofluid, Energies 2 (1) (2009) 97–119.
[63] H. Chen, Y. Ding, A. Lapkin, Rheological behaviour of nanofluids
containing tube/rod-like nanoparticles, Powder Technol. 194 (1–2)
(2009) 132–141.
[64] S.J. Chung, J.P. Leonard, I. Nettleship, J.K. Lee, Y. Soong, D.V. Martello, M.K.
Chyu, Characterization of ZnO nanoparticle suspension in water:
Effectiveness of ultrasonic dispersion, Powder Technol. 194 (1–2) (2009)
75–80.
[65] X.F. Li, D.S. Zhu, X.J. Wang, J.W. Gao, H. Li, Proceedings of the International
Symposium on Biophotonics, Nanophotonics and Metamaterials, 2006.
[66] S.H. Kim, S.R. Choi, D. Kim, Thermal conductivity of metal-oxide nanofluids:
particle size dependence and effect of laser irradiation, J. Heat Transfer 129
(3) (2007) 298–307.
[67] Z.-Q. Liu, J. Ma, Y.-H. Cui, Carbon nanotube supported platinum catalysts for
the ozonation of oxalic acid in aqueous solutions, Carbon 46 (6) (2008) 890–
897.
[68] U. Kreibig, L. Genzel, Optical absorption of small metallic particles, Surface
Sci. 156 (Part 2) (1985) 678–700.
[69] S. Link, M.A. El-Sayed, Optical properties and ultrafast dynamics of metallic
nanocrystals, Annu. Rev. Phys. Chem. 54 (1) (2003) 331–366.
[70] U.V. Kreibig, M. Vollmer, Optical Properties of Metal Clusters, Springer, 1995.
[71] C.Y. Tsai, H.T. Chien, P.P. Ding, B. Chan, T.Y. Luh, P.H. Chen, Effect of structural
character of gold nanoparticles in nanofluid on heat pipe thermal
performance, Mater. Lett. 58 (9) (2004) 1461–1465.
[72] P. Vadasz, Heat conduction in nanofluid suspensions, J. Heat Transfer 128 (5)
(2006) 465–477.
[73] J.-H. Lee, K.S. Hwang, S.P. Jang, B.H. Lee, J.H. Kim, S.U.S. Choi, C.J. Choi,
Effective viscosities and thermal conductivities of aqueous nanofluids
containing low volume concentrations of Al2O3 nanoparticles, Int. J. Heat
Mass Transfer 51 (11–12) (2008) 2651–2656.
[74] L. Vandsburger, Synthesis and Covalent Surface Modification of Carbon
Nanotubes for Preparation of Stabilized Nanofluid Suspensions, M.Eng.,
McGill University (Canada), Canada, 2009.
[75] M.-S. Liu, M.C.-C. Lin, C.Y. Tsai, C.-C. Wang, Enhancement of thermal
conductivity with Cu for nanofluids using chemical reduction method, Int. J.
Heat Mass Transfer 49 (17–18) (2006) 3028–3033.
[76] D.-W. Oh, A. Jain, J.K. Eaton, K.E. Goodson, J.S. Lee, Thermal conductivity
measurement of aluminum oxide nanofluids using the 3-omega method, in:
ASME Conference Proceedings, ASME, 2006, pp. 343–349.
[77] G. Paul, M. Chopkar, I. Manna, P.K. Das, Techniques for measuring the thermal
conductivity of nanofluids: a review, Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 14 (7)
(2010) 1913–1924.
[78] S.M.S. Murshed, K.C. Leong, C. Yang, Thermophysical and electrokinetic
properties of nanofluids – a critical review, Appl. Therm. Eng. 28 (17–18)
(2008) 2109–2125.
[79] P. Keblinski, S.R. Phillpot, S.U.S. Choi, J.A. Eastman, Mechanisms of heat flow
in suspensions of nano-sized particles (nanofluids), Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer
45 (4) (2002) 855–863.
4067
[80] X. Wang, X. Xu, S.U.S. Choi, Thermal conductivity of nanoparticles–fluid
mixture, J. Thermophys. Heat Transfer 4 (1999) 474–480.
[81] Y. Xuan, Q. Li, W. Hu, Aggregation structure and thermal conductivity of
nanofluids, AIChE J. 49 (4) (2003) 1038–1043.
[82] A. Amrollahi et al., The effects of temperature, volume fraction and vibration
time on the thermo-physical properties of a carbon nanotube suspension
(carbon nanofluid), Nanotechnology 19 (31) (2008) 315701.
[83] B.-X. Wang, L.-P. Zhou, X.-F. Peng, A fractal model for predicting the effective
thermal conductivity of liquid with suspension of nanoparticles, Int. J. Heat
Mass Transfer 46 (14) (2003) 2665–2672.
[84] R. Yajie et al., Effective thermal conductivity of nanofluids containing
spherical nanoparticles, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 38 (21) (2005) 3958.
[85] H. Xie, M. Fujii, X. Zhang, Effect of interfacial nanolayer on the effective
thermal conductivity of nanoparticle–fluid mixture, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer
48 (14) (2005) 2926–2932.
[86] Q. Xue, W.-M. Xu, A model of thermal conductivity of nanofluids with
interfacial shells, Mater. Chem. Phys. 90 (2–3) (2005) 298–301.
[87] P. Tillman, J.M. Hill, Determination of nanolayer thickness for a nanofluid, Int.
Commun. Heat Mass Transfer 34 (4) (2007) 399–407.
[88] L. Li, Y. Zhang, H. Ma, M. Yang, An investigation of molecular layering at the
liquid–solid interface in nanofluids by molecular dynamics simulation, Phys.
Lett. A 372 (25) (2008) 4541–4544.
[89] C. Maxwell, A treatise on electricity and magnetism 1 (1904) 435.
[90] R.L. Hamilton, O.K. Crosser, Thermal conductivity of heterogeneous two-
component systems, Ind. Eng. Chem. Fundam. 1 (3) (1962) 187–191.
[91] A. Sommers, K. Yerkes, Experimental investigation into the convective heat
transfer and system-level effects of Al2O3–propanol nanofluid, J. Nanopart.
Res. 12 (3) (2009) 1003–1014.
[92] P.E. Gharagozloo, J.K. Eaton, K.E. Goodson, Diffusion, aggregation, and the
thermal conductivity of nanofluids, Appl. Phys. Lett. 93 (10) (2008) 103110–
103113.
[93] X.F. Zhou, L. Gao, Effective thermal conductivity in nanofluids of nonspherical
particles with interfacial thermal resistance: differential effective medium
theory, J. Appl. Phys. 100 (2) (2006) 024913–024916.
[94] L. Gao, X.F. Zhou, Differential effective medium theory for thermal
conductivity in nanofluids, Phys. Lett. A 348 (3–6) (2006) 355–360.
[95] L. Gao, X. Zhou, Y. Ding, Effective thermal and electrical conductivity of
carbon nanotube composites, Chem. Phys. Lett. 434 (4–6) (2007) 297–300.
[96] J. Koo, C. Kleinstreuer, Laminar nanofluid flow in microheat-sinks, Int. J. Heat
Mass Transfer 48 (13) (2005) 2652–2661.
[97] H.T. Zhu, C.Y. Zhang, S.Q. Liu, Y.M. Tang, Y.S. Yin, Effects of nanoparticle
clustering and alignment on thermal conductivities of Fe3O4 aqueous
nanofluids, Appl. Phys. Lett. (2006).
[98] N.R. Karthikeyan, J. Philip, B. Raj, Effect of clustering on the thermal
conductivity of nanofluids, Mater. Chem. Phys. 109 (1) (2008) 50–55.
[99] H. Zhu, C. Zhang, S. Liu, Y. Tang, Y. Yin, Effects of nanoparticle clustering and
alignment on thermal conductivities of Fe3O4 aqueous nanofluids, Appl. Phys.
Lett. 89 (2) (2006).
[100] S. Lee, S.U.S. Choi, S. Li, J.A. Eastman, Measuring thermal conductivity of
fluids containing oxide nanoparticles, J. Heat Transfer 121 (2) (1999) 280–
289.
[101] K. Das, N. Putra, P. Thiesen, W. Roetzel, Temperature dependence of thermal
conductivity enhancement for nanofluids, J. Heat Transfer 125 (4) (2003)
567–574.
[102] K. Kwak, C. Kim, Viscosity and thermal conductivity of copper oxide nanofluid
dispersed in ethylene glycol, Korea Aust. Rheol. J. 17 (2) (2005) 35–40.
[103] X. Yimin, L. Qiang, H. Weifeng, Aggregation structure and thermal
conductivity of nanofluids, AIChE J. 49 (4) (2003) 1038–1043.
[104] M.E. Meibodi, M. Vafaie-Sefti, A.M. Rashidi, A. Amrollahi, M. Tabasi, H.S. Kalal,
Simple model for thermal conductivity of nanofluids using resistance model
approach, Int. Commun. Heat Mass Transfer 37 (5) (2010) 555–559.
[107] G.P. Peterson, C.H. Li, Heat and mass transfer in fluids with nanoparticle, Adv.
Heat Transfer Suspensions 39 (2006) 257–376.
[108] P. Vadász, Nanofluid suspensions and bi-composite media as derivatives of
interface heat transfer modeling in porous media, in: Emerging Topics in
Heat and Mass Transfer in Porous Media, 2008, pp. 283–326.
[109] S. Tavman, I.H. Tavman, Measurement of effective thermal conductivity of
wheat as a function of moisture content, Int. Commun. Heat Mass Transfer 25
(5) (1998) 733–741.
[110] S. Özerinç, S. Kakaç, A. Yazıcıoğlu, Enhanced thermal conductivity of
nanofluids: a state-of-the-art review, Microfluid. Nanofluid. 8 (2) (2010)
145–170.
[111] H. Wang, M. Sen, Analysis of the 3-omega method for thermal conductivity
measurement, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 52 (7–8) (2009) 2102–2109.
[112] S.M.S. Murshed, K.C. Leong, C. Yang, Thermophysical and electrokinetic
properties of nanofluids – a critical review, Appl. Therm. Eng. 28 (2008)
2109–2125.
[113] H.U. Kang, S.H. Kim, J.M. Oh, Estimation of thermal conductivity of nanofluid
using experimental effective particle volume, Exp. Heat Transfer 19 (2006)
181–191.
[114] R. Prasher, D. Song, J. Wang, P.E. Phelan, Measurements of nanofluid viscosity
and its implications for thermal applications, Appl. Phys. Lett 89 (2006).
[115] C.T. Nguyen, F. Desgranges, N. Galanis, G. Roy, T. Maré, S. Boucher, H. Angue
Mintsa, Viscosity data for Al2O3–water nanofluid-hysteresis: is heat transfer
enhancement using nanofluids reliable?, Int J. Therm. Sci. 47 (2) (2008) 103–
111.
4068 A. Ghadimi et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4051–4068
[116] H. Masuda, A. Ebata, K. Teramae, N. Hishinuma, Alteration of thermal
conductivity and viscosity of liquid by dispersing ultra-fine particles
(dispersion of Al2O3, SiO2 and TiO2 ultra-fine particles), Netsu Bussei
(Japan) 7 (1993) 227–233.
[117] H. Xie, L. Chen, Q. Wu, Measurements of the viscosity of suspensions
(nanofluids) containing nanosized Al2O3 particles, High Temp. – High Press.
37 (2008) 127–135.
[118] P.K. Namburu, D.P. Kulkarni, D. Misra, D.K. Das, Viscosity of copper oxide
nanoparticles dispersed in ethylene glycol and water mixture, Exp. Therm.
Fluid Sci. 323 (2007) 97–402.
[119] W. Duangthongsuk, S. Wongwises, Measurement of temperature-dependent
thermal conductivity and viscosity of TiO2–water nanofluids, Exp. Thermal
Fluid Sci. 33 (4) (2009) 706–714.
[120] I.M. Krieger, T.J. Dougherty, A mechanism for non-Newtonian Flow in
suspensions of rigid spheres, Trans. Soc. Rheol. 3 (1) (1959) 137–152.
[121] H. Chen, Y. Ding, C. Tan, Rheological behaviour of nanofluids, New J. Phys. 9
(2007) 367-1–367-24.
[122] B.C. Pak, Y.I. Cho, Hydrodynamic and heat transfer study of dispersed fluids
with submicron metallic oxide particles, Exp. Heat Transfer 11 (2) (1998)
151–170.
[123] C.T. Nguyen, F. Desgranges, G. Roy, N. Galanis, T. Maré, S. Boucher, H. Angue
Mintsa, Temperature and particle-size dependent viscosity data for water-
based nanofluids – hysteresis phenomenon, Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow 28 (6)
(2007) 1492–1506.
[124] K. Hagen, Heat Transfer with Applications, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, USA,
1999.
[125] H.A. Mintsa, G. Roy, C.T. Nguyen, D. Doucet, New temperature dependent
thermal conductivity data for water-based nanofluids, Int. J. Therm. Sci. 48
(2) (2009) 363–371.
[126] H.C. Brinkman, The viscosity of concentrated suspensions and solutions, J.
Chem. Phys. 20 (4) (1952) 571.
[127] N.A. Frankel, A. Acrivos, On the viscosity of a concentrated suspension of solid
spheres, Chem. Eng. Sci. 22 (6) (1967) 847–853.
[128] T.S. Lundgren, Slow flow through stationary random beds and suspensions of
spheres, J. Fluid Mech. 51 (02) (1972) 273–299.
[129] G.K. Batchelor, The effect of Brownian motion on the bulk stress in a
suspension of spherical particles, J. Fluid Mech. 83 (01) (1977) 97–117.
View publication stats
[130] A.L. Graham, On the viscosity of suspensions of solid spheres, Appl. Sci. Res.
37 (3) (1981) 275–286.
[131] D.P. Kulkarni, D.K. Das, G.A. Chukwu, Temperature dependent rheological
property of copper oxide nanoparticles suspension (nanofluid), J. Nanosci.
Nanotechnol. 6 (2006) 1150–1154.
[132] P.K. Namburu, D.P. Kulkarni, D. Misra, D.K. Das, Viscosity of copper oxide
nanoparticles dispersed in ethylene glycol and water mixture, Exp. Therm.
Fluid Sci. 32 (2) (2007) 397–402.
[133] Y. Yang, Z.G. Zhang, E.A. Grulke, W.B. Anderson, G. Wu, Heat transfer
properties of nanoparticle-in-fluid dispersions (nanofluids) in laminar flow,
Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 48 (6) (2005) 1107–1116.
[134] Y. He, Y. Jin, H. Chen, Y. Ding, D. Cang, H. Lu, Heat transfer and flow behavior
of aqueous suspensions of TiO2 nanoparticles (nanofluids) flowing upward
through a vertical pipe, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 50 (11–12) (2007) 2272–
2281.
[135] G.H. Ko, K. Heo, K. Lee, D.S. Kim, C. Kim, Y. Sohn, M. Choi, An
experimental study on the pressure drop of nanofluids containing carbon
nanotubes in a horizontal tube, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 50 (23–24)
(2007) 4749–4753.
[136] R.L. Fullman, Measurement of particle sizes in opaque bodies, J. Metals 5
(1953) 447–452.
[137] A.D. Noni Jr., D.E. Garcia, D. Hotza, A modified model for the viscosity of
ceramic suspensions, Ceram. Int. 28 (2002) 731–735.
[138] M.N. Pantzali, A.A. Mouza, S.V. Paras, Investigating the efficacy of nanofluids
as coolants in plate heat exchangers (PHE), Chem. Eng. Sci. 64 (14) (2009)
3290–3300.
[139] Y. Ding, H. Chen, Y. He, A. Lapkin, M. Yeganeh, L. Siller, Y.V. Butenko, Forced
convective heat transfer of nanofluids, Adv. Powder Technol. 18 (6) (2007)
813–824.
[140] E.V. Timofeeva, A.N. Gavrilov, J.M. McCloskey, Y.V. Tolmachev, S. Sprunt, L.M.
Lopatina, J.V. Selinger, Thermal conductivity and particle agglomeration in
alumina nanofluids: Experiment and theory, Phys. Rev. E 76 (6) (2007)
061203.
[141] S.-Q. Zhou, R. Ni, Measurement of the specific heat capacity of water-based
Al2O3 nanofluid, Appl. Phys. Lett. 92 (9) (2008) 093123.
[142] Y. Xuan, W. Roetzel, Conceptions for heat transfer correlation of nanofluids,
Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 43 (19) (2000) 3701–3707.