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KATHMANDU UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

A review on thermal properties of Nanofluids

Submitted To: Submitted By:

Malesh Shah Rishav Shrestha-24

Department of Mechanical Engineering Department of Chemical Engineering

For partial fulfillment of the requirement of the curriculum of Heat Transfer.

Submission Date:7/29/2021
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Table of Contents
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………3

Discussion…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

1. SiO2- ethylene nanofluid …………………………………………………………………………………………………..4

2. Thermal behavior of Titanite nanofluid ……………………………………………………………………………. 5
3. Hybrid nanofluids ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. .6
4. Theoretical Framework………………………………………………………………………………………………………7
5. Application…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………8

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………9

References………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..10
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INTRODUCTION

Modern technology mandates voracious power and with that proper thermal management is
evident especially in many high power engineering devices like heat exchangers, transformers,
electronic devices, auto mobile engines and diesel generators. Heat transfer through fluids
plays an indispensable role in thermal management of cooling systems in vehicular and
avionics industries, cooling systems in building, hydronic heating and for industrial cooling
purposes in manufacture of textile, petrochemical, pulp and paper, food and other processing
plants. One of the constraints in development of energy efficient heat transfer fluids which are
essential in various industrial application is low thermal conductivity of conventional heat
transfer fluids. To overcome this constraint, research has ploughing it’s way into a new idea of
increasing efficacy of convectional heat transfer through fluids: dispersing nano-size particle
into the base fluids.[1]
The conceptualization of dispersing nano sized particle typically in order of 1-100nm which is
generally of high thermal conductivity into base fluid often of low convective heat transfer rate
is taken into account by several researchers. These nano particles are often metallic or non-
metallic such as Al2O3, CuO, Cu, SiO, TiO and are suspended in heat transfer fluid such as
ethylene glycol, water and engine oil. Even at low concentrations, nano-particles are usually
several orders of magnitude larger than the base fluid, resulting in a substantial increase in the
heat transfer coefficient. Nano-particles with it’s base fluid is collectively known as nanofluid.
Nanofluids are nanoscale colloidal suspensions containing condensed nanomaterials.[1-3]
The addition of solid particles into a base fluid to enhance the heat transfer isn’t new in fact
several bibliography provides insights on enhancement of heat transfer coefficient. The
suspension of solid particles of order of magnitude micrometer / millimeter into a base fluid is
being practiced for years. Although solid additives may enhance heat transfer coefficient, their
usage is limited because micrometer and/or millimeter-sized particles favor some unwanted
problems such as poor suspension stability and channel clogging, extra pressure drop and
erosion. (Chio et al )[1] stumbled upon the efficacies of nanofluids and was the first to coin the
term and he found that when compared to base fluids like oil or water, nanofluids exhibit better
thermo-physical properties like thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, viscosity, and
convective heat transfer coefficients. This was at the time unexplained by classical theory. One
of the convincing explanation for enhancement in heat transfer of nanofluids is expected to be
intensification of turbulence or eddy, suppression or interruption of the boundary layer, as well
as dispersion or backmixing of the suspended nanoparticles, in addition to significant
enhancement of the thermal conductivity and heat capacity of the fluid. Researchers have been
trying to figure out ways to further enhance heat transfer in a nanofluid considering its infant
state. Its been suggested that particles size, its volume fraction in base fluid, nature of flow of
nanofluid has governing effect in heat transfer coefficient [4]. Although limited research and
resource has been a hurdle many researcher are trying their way in less common nanofluids like
SiO2 – ethylene, Titanite nanofluids and hybrid nanofluids.
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DISCUSSION
1. SiO2- ethylene nanofluid.
(Kulkarni et al.) [5] investigated on Si02 nanoparticles with base fluid as ethylene glycol/
water nanofluid. They studied on the efficacy of Si02 with varying particle size and
concentration and their respective effect on heat transfer coefficient. Their choice of
selection for SiO2 nanoparticles was for its affordability as opposed to other metallic
options. A custom experimental apparatus for the measurement of heat transfer coefficient
which included devices like turbine pump, differential pressure transducer, bypass valve,
heat transfer test section. For constant heat flux, heat transfer test section was heated by
four strips heater. The nano fluids sample were prepared by mixing concentrated SiO2
nanoparticles suspended in ethylene glycol. During the experiment they were avail to fluid
inlet outlet temperature, flow rate of fluid and tube wall temperature and using this they
calculated convective heat transfer coefficient,
𝑞′′
ℎ𝑛𝑓 = 𝑇 where Tw and Tf are average wall and average fluid inlet, outlet
𝑤 −𝑇𝑓
temperature and 𝑞 is the heat flux.
′′

The result of their

experimentation is
represented by figures above.
Figure 1 shows the effect of
concentration of silicon
dioxide in base fluid and its
corresponding heat transfer
coefficient. With increasing
Reynolds number, heat
transfer coefficient is observed
to at every concentration with
highest at 10%. An increase of
16% in heat transfer
coefficient is observed at 10%
concentration at Reynolds
number 10200. Likewise,
Fig 1 convective heat transfer coefficient of SiO2 nanofluids figure 2 shows the increment
(20 nm diameter) in ethylene/water base of particle diameter at heat
transfer coefficient. For larger
diameter, viscosity decreases
causing Reynolds number to
increase. The Peclet number
increases too. The combined
increment in Reynolds number
and Peclet number therefore
enhances heat transfer
coefficient because its effect is
of greater magnitude which
overcomes the increased
surface area of smaller
particles.

Fig 2 effect of particle diameter on the heat transfer

characteristics of 4% SiO2 nanoparticles
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2.Thermal behavior of Titanite nanofluid

(Chen et al.)[6] studied on new material, a unique type of nanofluid called Titanite. Titanite
are complex compound of titanium, silicate and calcium. Literature status shows that there
is less research on thermodynamics of titanite nanofluid. They showed it to be a good
model for study of convective heat transfer. They synthesized titanite nanoparticle by
using a method called alkali hydrothermal transformation. Raw materials like titanium
dioxide(TiO2), sulfuric acid( H2SO4) and sodium hydroxide(NaOH) were employed. TiO2
and NaOH solution was heated at 140C for 22 hours and washed with H2SO4. The resulting
product was vacuum dried to give titanite nanoparticle. They set up a experimental system
for the measurement of heat transfer coefficient consisting of a flow loop, a heating unit, a
cooling part and a measuring and control unit.

Fig 3: effect of titanite concentration on the convective

heat transfer at varying diameter. (Chen et al.)

Their experimentation produced some decisive result and are presented below. Figure 3
explains the influence of concentration and diameter on the heat transfer coefficient at
Re=1700. There is major enhancement in heat transfer coefficient at lower diameter and
concentration 1.0% and 2.5% in comparison to base fluid water. However, the differences
are less noticeable at increasing concentration. The degree of heat transfer enhancement
varies with the axial position; the largest improvement occurs at the entrance region and
the improvement decreases with increasing axial distance, and is close to a constant at
x/D>200nm. It is observed that the highest improvement is seen at x/D=50nm with 11.8%,
23.5% and 24.9% improvement at concentration 0.5%, 1.0% and 2.5% wt.%. respectively
and differences are less considerable at x/D=400nm with 5.6%, 13.2% and 13.5%.
Similarly, particle shape and size also played important role in improving convective heat
transfer. It is proposed that sphericity of the particle also contributed to the improvement
of heat transfer as smaller diameter typically less than x/D=150nm are likely to be
spherical and leading to aggregation. Aggregation is thought to increase further increase
heat transfer coefficient.
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3. Hybrid nanofluids
Over the last decade, research on nanofluids has grown at a breakneck pace. However there
are still inconsistent result and poor understanding of mechanism. So, some of the
researcher tried to use hybrid nanofluid. Hybrid nanofluids are colloidal suspension of
dissimilar nanoparticles in composite or mixture. A single material may not constitute all
the favorable requisites for practical purposes i.e. it may have either good thermal
properties or rheological properties. So, the extent of hybrid nanofluid study is to find
combination of both. (Azwadi et al.)[7] investigated on silver-graphene(Ag/HEG) hybrid
nanofluid where they numerically studied in a circular tube which was subjected to
constant heat flux. The Reynolds number of 10000 to 120000 in a volume fraction of 0.4 %
and 1% were used. For the experimentation, a 2D circular channel where it was subjected
to constant heat flux to the wall as well as axis symmetric.

Fig 4 Nusselt number as a function of volume fraction for different

Reynolds number in Ag/HEG Azwadi et al.[7]

There is correlation between Nusselt number and volume fraction at different Reynolds
number as shown by figure 4 and it was observed to increase with increasing volume
fraction. It is found that at Re=60000 and 40000 there was enhancement of about 34.43 %
and 38.72% respectively at volume fraction ф =1% as compared to base fluid. This
improvement was due to the chaotic movement of the nanoparticles in the mixture, and as
the volume fraction of the mixture grows, the frequency of lattice vibration increases,
allowing more particles to participate in heat transport and thereby improving the heat
transfer process. Furthermore, when the volume fraction of the base fluid increases,
clustering of nanoparticles in the base fluid enhances the heat transmission process.
Synergistic effect and hybridization may also be the reason for the enhanced convective
heat transfer of composite nanomaterials than that of single nanoparticles.
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4.Theoretical framework
(i) (Kulkarni et al.) [5] used following mathematical model for determining Nusselt
number of nanofluids which was used in silicon dioxide nanofluid.
𝑁𝑢𝑛𝑓 = 0.4328(1.0 + 11.285𝜙 0.754 𝑃𝑒𝑑0.218 )Re0.333 0.4
𝑛𝑓 ⁡ Pr𝑛𝑓

For laminar flow

𝑁𝑢𝑛𝑓 = 0.0059(1.0 + 7.6286𝜙 0.6886 𝑃𝑒𝑑0.001 )Re0.9238

𝑛𝑓
0.4
⁡ Pr𝑛𝑓
For turbulent flow
where,
𝑢𝑚 𝑑𝑝 𝑢𝑚 𝑑 𝑣𝑛𝑓
𝑃𝑒𝑑 = ; Re𝑛𝑓 = ; Pr𝑛𝑓 =
𝛼𝑛𝑓 𝑣𝑛𝑓 𝛼𝑛𝑗

⁡𝛼𝑛𝑓 = 𝑘𝑛𝑓 /(𝜌𝑛𝑓 ⋅ 𝐶𝑝𝑛𝑓 )

where knf =effective thermal conductivity of base fluid given by Hamilton and Crosser
equation:
𝑘𝑠 +(𝑛−1)𝑘𝑓 −(𝑛−1)𝜙(𝑘𝑓 −𝑘𝑠 )
𝑘𝑛𝑓 = 𝑘𝑓 [ ]where 𝑘𝑠 and⁡𝑘𝑓 is thermal conductivity
𝑘𝑠 +(𝑛−1)𝑘𝑓 +𝜙(𝑘𝑓 −𝑘𝑠 )
of nanoparticle and base fluid respectively and φ is volume fraction. 𝜌𝑛𝑓 is the effective
density given by: ⁡⁡
⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡⁡𝜌𝑛𝑓 = (1 − 𝜙)𝜌𝑓 + 𝜙𝜌𝑠 where ⁡𝜌𝑓 and ⁡𝜌𝑠 are density of fluid and solid particles
respectively.
And ⁡𝐶𝑝𝑛𝑓 is the effective specific heat of nanofluid given by Buongiorno equation:

𝜙𝜌𝑠 𝐶𝑝𝑠 + (1 − 𝜙)𝜌𝑓 𝐶𝑝𝑓

𝐶𝑝𝑛𝑓 =
𝜌𝑛𝑓
and finally the convective heat transfer coefficient is
calculated by:
ℎ𝑛𝑓 = (𝑁𝑢𝑛𝑓 ⋅ 𝑘𝑛𝑓 )/𝑑
(ii) (Chen et al.)[6] employed Shah equation for the
prediction and measuring the efficacy of their experiment.

𝐷 1/3 𝐷
1.953 (RePr ) (RePr ) ≥ 33.3
𝑁𝑢(𝑥) = { 𝑥 𝑥 where,
𝐷 𝐷
4.364 + 0.0722RePr⁡ 𝑥 (RePr 𝑥 ) < 33.3
𝑁𝑢(𝑥) = ℎ(𝑥)𝐷/𝑘 is the
Nusselt number, k is the thermal conductivity of fluids : k1
for base liquid, k eff for nanofluids Pr is the Prandlt Fig 5 A comparison of measured heat transfer
number. coefficient with the Shah expression for distilled
water at Re=1700 (Chen et al.)[6]
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5. Applications
(Rafati et al.)[8] availed on alumina( Al2O3), silica( SiO2) and titania( TiO2) nanofluids for
cooling quad core CPU. A highly conductive thermal paste was used for minimizing thermal
resistance between block and processor’s integrated heat spreader. They investigated
effect of flow rate of nanofluid in the cooling process. Their experimentation showed
enhanced cooling of the microchip as indicated by the noticeable reduction in temperature
as compared to base fluid. Alumina made the largest decrease in temperature from 49.5 to
43.9 °C for 1.0% volumetric concentration and flow rate of 1.0 L per minute as compared
to base fluid.
(Ahammed et al.)[9] revealed improvement in performance of electronic devices by
thermoelectric cooling taking Bismuth Telluride (BiTe3) thermoelectric cooler and using
Al2O3 – water nanofluid as a coolant. They reported 40% increment in coefficient of
performance (COP) of thermoelectric module for 0.2% volume fraction of nanofluid.
Enhancement of 23.92% for 0.2% volume fraction was found in local Nusselt number when
compared with that of water. And finally, a decrement of 9.1 % was observed in
thermoelectric temperature difference between hot and cold side of thermoelectric cooler.
Thus, improvement in thermal transfer makes nanofluid a promising coolant for electric
cooling processes.
(Sohel et al.)[10] checked on the thermal properties of mini channel heat sink and
investigated experimentally for cooling of electronics using Al2O3 – water nanofluid as
coolant instead of pure water. The coolant of varying volume fraction, 0.10 to 0.25 vol%
was passed through Cu mini channel heat sink at ranges of flow rate from 0.50 to 1.25
L/min. The experimental result concurred great improvement of the thermal performance
while using nanofluid. A 18% improvement was seen on heat transfer coefficient as
compared to pure distilled water. At 0.25 vol. percent, the nanofluid drastically reduced the
heat sink base temperature (approximately 2.7°C ) while also showing 15.72 percent less
thermal resistance.
There is some discrepancy on which nanoparticles is most effective and which has
profound effect on cooling and other applications. Sajid et al compiled some information
and presented on a pie-chart.

Fig 6 percentage of
researcher who used
particular
nanoparticles for their
experimental
purposes. (Sajid et
al.)[11]
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CONCLUSION
Due to its superior thermal conductivity and convective heat transfer nanofluids is on the
verge of bloom though research in this field still needs appetite. SiO2 experiment showed
increase in heat transfer rate with increasing concentration of nanofluid. Titanite
nanotubes experiment showed effect of nanoparticle size on convective heat transfer. Small
sized particle proved to be better enhancer than bigger size due to axial position and fully
developed region. Likewise, hybrid nanofluids are fairly new group of nanofluids which
requires some further research Au-graphene nanoparticle showed noteworthy
performance in comparison to conventional base fluid even at low volume concentration
due to eddy turbulence. Lately, most popular use of nanofluids is for cooling electronic
devices like cooling of a microprocessor, micro channel heat sink and heat exchangers.
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Refrences

[1] Pak, B.C. and Cho, Y.I., 1998. Hydrodynamic and heat transfer study of dispersed fluids
with submicron metallic oxide particles. Experimental Heat Transfer an International
Journal, 11(2), pp.151-170.
[2] Xuan, Y. and Li, Q., 2003. Investigation on convective heat transfer and flow features of
nanofluids. J. Heat transfer, 125(1), pp.151-155.
[3] Kakaç, S. and Pramuanjaroenkij, A., 2009. Review of convective heat transfer
enhancement with nanofluids. International journal of heat and mass transfer, 52(13-14),
pp.3187-3196.
[4] Yang, Y., Zhang, Z.G., Grulke, E.A., Anderson, W.B. and Wu, G., 2005. Heat transfer
properties of nanoparticle-in-fluid dispersions (nanofluids) in laminar flow. International
journal of heat and mass transfer, 48(6), pp.1107-1116.
[5] Kulkarni, D.P., Namburu, P.K., Ed Bargar, H. and Das, D.K., 2008. Convective heat transfer
and fluid dynamic characteristics of SiO2 ethylene glycol/water nanofluid. Heat Transfer
Engineering, 29(12), pp.1027-1035.
[6] Chen, H., Yang, W., He, Y., Ding, Y., Zhang, L., Tan, C., Lapkin, A.A. and Bavykin, D.V., 2008.
Heat transfer and flow behaviour of aqueous suspensions of titanate nanotubes
(nanofluids). Powder technology, 183(1), pp.63-72.
[7] Azwadi, C.N. and Adamu, I.M., 2016. Turbulent force convective heat transfer of hybrid
nano fluid in a circular channel with constant heat flux. Journal of Advanced Research in
Fluid Mechanics and Thermal Sciences, 19(1), pp.1-9.
[8] Rafati, M., Hamidi, A.A. and Niaser, M.S., 2012. Application of nanofluids in computer
cooling systems (heat transfer performance of nanofluids). Applied Thermal Engineering,
45, pp.9-14.
[9] Ahammed, N., Asirvatham, L.G. and Wongwises, S., 2016. Thermoelectric cooling of
electronic devices with nanofluid in a multiport minichannel heat exchanger. Experimental
Thermal and Fluid Science, 74, pp.81-90.
[10] Sohel, M.R., Khaleduzzaman, S.S., Saidur, R., Hepbasli, A., Sabri, M.F.M. and Mahbubul,
I.M., 2014. An experimental investigation of heat transfer enhancement of a minichannel
heat sink using Al2O3–H2O nanofluid. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 74,
pp.164-172.
[11] Sajid, M.U. and Ali, H.M., 2019. Recent advances in application of nanofluids in heat
transfer devices: a critical review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 103,
pp.556-592.
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