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Heat Transfer Enhancement by Nano Fluids

Technical Report · April 2012

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 ME642-Convective Heat and Mass Transfer, April 2012

Heat Transfer Enhancement by Nano Fluids

Ganesh Ranakoti, Irtisha, Sandhya Dewangan, Siddhartha Kosti, Rohan Nemade

Department of Mechanical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, U.P. – 208016

Abstract
Nanofluids are suspensions of nanoparticles in fluids that show significant enhancement of their
properties at modest nanoparticle concentrations. Many of the publications on nanofluids are about
understanding their behaviour so that they can be utilized where straight heat transfer enhancement
is paramount as in many industrial applications, nuclear reactors, transportation, electronics as well
as biomedicine and food. This paper focuses one explaining the basic mechanisms of improvement in
heat transfer by addition nano particles.

1. Introduction

Nanofluids are dilute liquid suspensions of nanoparticles with at least one of their principal
dimensions smaller than 100 nm. From previous investigations, nanofluids have been found to possess
enhanced thermo physical properties such as thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, viscosity and
convective heat transfer coefficients compared to those of base fluids like oil or water. From the
current review, it can be seen that nanofluids clearly exhibit enhanced thermal conductivity, which
goes up with increasing volumetric fraction of nanoparticles. Review of experimental studies clearly
showed a lack of consistency in the reported results of different research groups regarding thermal
properties. The effects of several important factors such as particle size and shapes, clustering of
particles, temperature of the fluid, and dissociation of surfactant on the effective thermal conductivity
of nanofluids have not been studied adequately. It is important to do more research so as to ascertain
the effects of these factors on the thermal conductivity of wide range of nanofluids. Classical models
cannot be used to explain adequately the observed enhanced thermal conductivity of nanofluids.
Recently most developed models only include one or two postulated mechanisms of nanofluids heat
transfer. For instance, there has not been much fundamental work reported on the determination of the
effective thermal diffusivity of nanofluids nor heat transfer coefficients for nanofluids in natural
convection.

2. What are nanofluids

Nanofluids are solid-liquid composite materials consisting of solid nanoparticles or nanofibers with
sizes typically of 1-100 nm suspended in liquid. Even a small amount (<1% volume fraction) of Cu
nanoparticles or carbon nanotubes dispersed in ethylene glycol or oil is reported to increase the
inherently poor thermal conductivity of the liquid by 40% and 150%, respectively. Conventional
particle-liquid suspensions require high concentrations (>10%) of particles to achieve such
enhancement. However, problems of rheology and stability are amplified at high concentrations,
precluding the widespread use of conventional slurries as heat transfer fluids. In some cases, the
observed enhancement in thermal conductivity of nanofluids is orders of magnitude larger than
predicted by well-established theories. Other perplexing results in this rapidly evolving field include a
surprisingly strong temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity and a three-fold higher
critical heat flux compared with the base fluids

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3. Synthesis of nanofluids

The optimization of nanofluid thermal properties requires successful synthesis procedures for
creating stable suspensions of nanoparticles in liquids. Depending on the requirements of a particular
application, many combinations of particle materials and fluids are of potential interest. For example,
nanoparticles of oxides, nitrides, metals, metal carbides, and non-metals with or without surfactant
molecules can be dispersed into fluids such as water, ethylene glycol, or oils. Studies to date have
used one or more of several possible methods for nanoparticle production and dispersion. Here, we
briefly mention the techniques that, so far, have been most commonly used.
Several studies, including the earliest investigations of nanofluids, used a two-step process in
which nanoparticles or nanotubes are first produced as a dry powder, often by inert gas condensation.
Chemical vapour deposition has also been used to produce materials for use in nanofluids, particularly
multiwalled carbon nanotubes. The nanoparticles or nanotubes are then dispersed into a fluid in a
second processing step. Simple techniques such as ultrasonic agitation or the addition of surfactants to
the fluids are sometimes used to minimize particle aggregation and improve dispersion behaviour.
Single-step nanofluid processing methods have also been developed. For example, nanofluids
containing dispersed metal nanoparticles have been produced by a ‘direct evaporation’ technique. As
with the inert gas condensation technique, this involves the vaporization of a source material under
vacuum conditions. An advantage of this technique is that nanoparticle agglomeration is minimized,
while a disadvantage is that for a wide range of applications, including studies of thermal transport.

Fig 1.Transmission electron micrographs showing (left) Cu nanofluids, (middle) CuO

nanoparticles, and (right) alkanethiol terminated AuPd colloidal particles

4. Thermal conductivity of nanofluids

Nanofluids are composite materials and, therefore, any discussion of nanofluid thermal
conductivity must begin with effective medium theories. Effective medium theories were introduced
by Mossotti, Clausius, Maxwell, and Lorenz in the late 19th century, firmly established with the work
of Bruggeman, and thoroughly investigated and applied in many fields of science and engineering
since then. We begin our discussion with the simplest case of spherical particles where interface
effects are negligible. In other words, at this stage we do not consider the finite thermal conductance
of the particle/fluid interface. In the limit of a small volume fraction of nanoparticles f all versions of
the effective medium theory converge to the same solution and, in the limit of high thermal
conductivity particles, predict that the nanofluid’s thermal conductivity enhancement will be 3f.
Many of the results for high concentrations of nanoparticles can also be understood based on
effective medium theory, if we allow for the possibility that the nanoparticles have clustered into
small aggregates. Since an aggregate of nanoparticles occupies more space than the individual
nanoparticles that make up the aggregate, the volume fraction of the aggregates is larger than the
volume fraction of nanoparticles.
A random close packing of spherical nanoparticles will have a relative density of approximately
60%. So, if the nanoparticles have aggregated, we can expect an enhancement in the thermal
conductivity of approximately 3f/0.6, or 5f. Even larger enhancements are possible for more loosely
packed clusters an enhancement in the thermal conductivity of approximately 5f is often observed.
The thermal conductivity of the aggregate will, of course, be smaller than the thermal conductivity of

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Fig. 2 Relative increase in the thermal conductivity as a
function of the volume fraction of nanoparticles. Lower dashed
line - prediction from effective medium theory for well-
dispersed suspensions . The upper dashed line - prediction for
random-close-packed aggregates of nanoparticles
Fig. 3 Predictions from effective medium theory of the
composite conductivity normalized by the conductivity of the
matrix as a function of volume fraction f loading of high
thermal conductivity spherical nanoparticles: solid squares –
well-dispersed particles; circles – clusters of packed particles
(60 vol.% particles); open squares – loosely packed clusters
(40 vol.% particles).

The nanoparticle, but this reduction in conductivity – we estimate a factor of two reduction in thermal
conductivity of the aggregate relative to the nanoparticle – will not be a significant factor if the
conductivity of the nanoparticles is sufficiently large.

5. Effects of Some Parameters on Thermal Conductivity of Nanofluids

Experimental studies show that thermal conductivity of nanofluids depends on many factors such
as particle volume fraction, particle material, particle size, particle shape, base fluid material, and
temperature. Amount and types of additives and the acidity of the nanofluid were also shown to be
effective in the thermal conductivity enhancement

5.1. Particle Volume Fraction

Particle volume fraction is a parameter that is investigated in almost all of the experimental
studies and the results are usually in agreement qualitatively. Most of the researchers report
increasing thermal conductivity with increasing particle volume fraction and the relation
found is usually linear. However, there are also some studies which indicate nonlinear
behaviour. According to the some authors, such a nonlinear relation is an indication of
interactions between particles. It was concluded that despite the fact that particle volume
fraction is very small, nanotubes interact with each other due to the very high particle
concentration (1011 particles/cm3)

5.2.Particle Material

Most of the studies show that particle material is an important parameter that affects the
thermal conductivity of nanofluids. At first glance, it might be thought that the difference in
the thermal conductivities of particle materials is the main reason of this effect. However,
studies show that particle type may affect the thermal conductivity of nanofluids in other
ways. For example, Lee et al. considered the thermal conductivity of nanofluids with Al2O3
and CuO nanoparticles and they found that nanofluids with CuO nanoparticles showed
better enhancement when compared to the nanofluids prepared using Al O nanoparticles. It
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should be noted that Al2O3, as a material, has higher thermal conductivity than CuO.

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Therefore, thermal conductivity of particle material may not be the dominant parameter that
determines the thermal conductivity of the nanofluid.
Effect of particle material is much more pronounced when carbon nanotubes are
used for the preparation of nanofluids. Some authors noted that such an anomalous
enhancement might be due to the liquid nanolayers forming around the nanotubes. On the
other hand, the fact that heat is transported ballistically inside the nanotubes improves the
conduction of heat in the tubes, but the effect of this factor is not dominant according to the
authors.

5.3.Particle Size

Particle size is another important parameter of thermal conductivity of nanofluids. It is

possible to produce nanoparticles of various sizes, generally ranging between 5 and 100 nm.
Eastman et al. concluded that the size of the nanoparticles is an important factor that affects
the thermal conductivity enhancement, which is contrary to the predictions of conventional
models such as Hamilton and Crosser model, which does not take the effect of particle size on
thermal conductivity into account.

The general trend in the experimental data is that the thermal conductivity of nanofluids
increases with decreasing particle size. This trend is theoretically supported by two
mechanisms of thermal conductivity enhancement; Brownian motion of nanoparticles and
liquid layering around nanoparticles. However, there is also a significant amount of
contradictory data in the literature that indicate decreasing thermal conductivity with
decreasing particle size. In fact, for the case of nanofluids with Al2O3 nanoparticles, such
results are more common than the results showing increasing thermal conductivity with
decreasing particle size.

5.4.Particle Shape

There are mainly two particle shapes used in nanofluid research; spherical particles and
cylindrical particles. Cylindrical particles usually have a large length-to-diameter ratio. Two
types of nanoparticles were used by Xie et al., for the preparation of nanofluids; spherical
particles with 26 nm average diameter and cylindrical particles with 600 nm average
diameter. It was found that 4.2 vol. % water-based nanofluid with spherical particles had a
thermal conductivity enhancement of 15.8%, whereas 4 vol. % nanofluid with cylindrical
particles had a thermal conductivity enhancement of 22.9%. In addition to these experimental
results, the fact that nanofluids with carbon nanotubes (which are cylindrical in shape)
generally show greater thermal conductivity enhancement than nanofluids with spherical
particles should also be considered. As a result, one can conclude that cylindrical
nanoparticles provide higher thermal conductivity enhancement than spherical particles. One
of the possible reasons of this is the rapid heat transport along relatively larger distances in
cylindrical particles since cylindrical particles usually have lengths on the order of
micrometers.
However, it should be noted that nanofluids with cylindrical particles usually have
much larger viscosities than those with spherical nanoparticles. As a result, the associated
increase in pumping power is large and this reduces the feasibility of usage of nanofluids with
cylindrical particles.

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5.5.Particle Material and Base Fluid

Many different particle materials are used for nanofluid preparation. Al2O3, CuO, TiO2, SiC,
TiC, Ag, Au, Cu, and Fe nanoparticles are frequently used in nanofluid research. Carbon
nanotubes are also utilized due to their extremely high thermal conductivity in the longitudinal
(axial) direction.
Base fluids mostly used in the preparation of nanofluids are the common working fluids of heat
transfer applications; such as, water, ethylene glycol and engine oil. According to the
conventional thermal conductivity models such as the Maxwell model, as the base fluid thermal
conductivity of a mixture decreases, the thermal conductivity ratio (thermal conductivity of
nanofluid (knf) divided by the thermal conductivity of base fluid (kf)) increases. It is seen that
poor conductive fluid serve best then highly conductive ones. Hence water is generally is
avoided. When it comes to nanofluids, the situation is more complicated due to the fact that the
viscosity of the base fluid affects the Brownian motion of nanoparticles and that in turn affects
the thermal conductivity of the nanofluid.

5.6.Temperature

In conventional suspensions of solid particles (with sizes on the order of millimetres or

micrometers) in liquids, thermal conductivity of the mixture depends on temperature only due
to the dependence of thermal conductivity of base liquid and solid particles on temperature.
However, in case of nanofluids, change of temperature affects the Brownian motion of
nanoparticles and clustering of nanoparticles, which results in dramatic changes of thermal
conductivity of nanofluids with temperature.

5.7.Effect of Acidity (PH)

The number of studies regarding the pH value on the effect of fluid acidity on the thermal
conductivity enhancement of nanofluids is limited when compared to the studies regarding the
other parameters. A significant decrease in thermal conductivity ratio with increasing pH values
as reported in literature. It was also observed that the rate of change of thermal conductivity
with particle volume fraction was dependent on pH value. Thermal conductivity enhancement
of 5 vol. % Al2O3/water nanofluid was 23% when pH is equal to 2.0 and it became 19% when
pH is equal to 11.5. The authors related the dependence of thermal conductivity on pH to the
fact that as the difference between the is electric point of Al2O3 nanoparticles and pH value of
the solution increases, mobility of nanoparticles increases, which improve the micro-convection
effect. It is obtained optimum values of pH (approximately 8.0 for Al2O3/water and 9.5 for
Cu/water nanofluids) for maximum thermal conductivity enhancement. At the optimum value
of pH, surface charge of nanoparticles increases, which creates repulsive forces between
nanoparticles. As a result of this effect, severe clustering of nanoparticles is prevented
(excessive clustering may result in sedimentation, which decreases thermal conductivity
enhancement).

6. Mechanisms of Heat Transfer Improvement –

Apart from the basic reason of improvement in thermal conductivity in nano fluids, the
suspension of nano particles alters the flow behaviour in general. Following section describes
several of the proposed mechanisms.

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6.1. Enhancement of heat transfer by improvement in thermal conductivity.

Liquid molecules close to a solid surface are known to form layered structures. the
layered molecules are in an intermediate physical state between a solid and bulk liquid. With
these solid like liquid layers, the nanofluid structure consists of solid nanoparticles, solid-like
liquid layer, and a bulk liquid. The solid-like nanolayer acts as a thermal bridge between a
solid nanoparticle and a bulk liquid and so is key to enhancing thermal conductivity.

Macroscopically, the forced convective heat transfer coefficient, h, is given by h = Kf /δt ,

with δt representing the local thickness of thermal boundary layer and Kf- the local effective
thermal conductivity of nanofluids adjacent to the wall surface. This simple expression
indicates that either an increase in Kf and a decrease in δt , or both, can result in an increase of
the convective heat transfer coefficient. This explains why the entrance region gives a higher
convective heat transfer coefficient. As nanofluids have a higher thermal conductivity in
comparison with the base liquid, the simple expression also partially explains the enhanced
convective heat transfer coefficient. The expression, however, cannot provide an adequate
explanation of the experimental observations that, in some cases, the convective heat transfer
coefficient enhancement is much higher than the thermal conduction enhancement, while in
other cases, there is no convective heat transfer enhancement despite considerable thermal
conduction enhancement, e.g. aqueous-based nano-diamond and ethylene-glycol-based titania
nanofluids.

Microscopically, nanofluids are inhomogeneous. There are at least two possible reasons for
the inhomogeneity. One is the presence of agglomerates in nanofluids, which can be
associated with either sintering during nanoparticle manufacturing or solution chemistry
during nanofluids formulation. The latter is due to the attraction between nanoparticles, e.g.
van der Waals’ attractive force and depletion phenomena. The agglomerates (aggregates) can
be controlled by adjusting the solution chemistry and applying shear. The second reason is
particle migration due to viscosity and velocity gradients. Experimental evidence of particle
migration is, If particles are very small, Brownian motion is strong and the effect of the
above-mentioned particle migration is negligible. If particles are large, e.g. aggregates of
hundreds of nanometres, the contribution of the Brownian motion is small, and a particle
depletion region may exist at the wall region, which gives non-uniform distributions of
particle concentration, viscosity and thermal conductivity. The direct results of particle
migration are lower particle concentration at the wall region and a thinner boundary thickness
due to disturbance by the moving particles. This, according to h = Kf /δt , can lead to three
possible scenarios: (i) h is enhanced if the decrease in δt exceeds the decrease in Kf; (ii) h
does not change if the decrease in δt is equal to the decrease in Kf; and (iii) h is reduced if the
decrease in δt is lower than the decrease in Kf. This qualitatively explains the experimental
results. However, quantitative explanation requires understanding of how nanoparticles
behave under shear and how they interact with each other and with fluid in the boundary
layer.

6.2.Effect of Brownian Motion

It is a seemingly random movement of particles suspended in a liquid or gas and the motion is
due to collisions with base fluid molecules, which makes the particles undergo random-walk
motion. Thus, the Brownian motion intensifies with an increase in temperature as per the
kinetic theory of particles. Some researchers, have suggested that the potential mechanism for
enhancement of thermal conductivity is the transfer of energy due to the collision of higher
temperature particles with lower ones. The effectiveness of the Brownian motion decreases
with an increase in the bulk viscosity

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 ME642-Convective Heat and Mass Transfer, April 2012

6.3.Thermophoresis

Thermophoresis or the Soret effect is a phenomenon observed when a mixture of two or more
types of motile particles (particles able to move) is subjected to the force of a temperature
gradient. The phenomenon is most significant in a natural convection process, where the flow
is driven by buoyancy and temperature. The particles travel in the direction of decreasing
temperature and the process of heat transfer increases with a decrease in the bulk density.

6.4.Intensification of turbulence

Xuan and Li proposed that the enhancement could also come from intensification of
turbulence due to the presence of the nanoparticles. However, pressure drop measurements by
Xuan and Li, Pak and Cho clearly show that turbulent friction factors in their nanofluids can
be very well predicted by the traditional friction factor correlations for pure fluids, if the
measured nanofluid viscosity is used. This suggests that, beyond the obvious viscosity effect,
turbulence is not affected by the presence of the nanoparticles. This conclusion is
corroborated by a comparison of the time and length scales for the nanoparticles and the
turbulent eddies.

6.5.Clustering of nano particles

Nanoparticles are known to form clusters. These clusters can be handled by using fractal
theory. Evans et al. proposed that clustering can result in fast transport of heat along relatively
large distances since heat can be conducted much faster by solid particles when compared to
liquid matrix. This phenomenon is illustrated schematically in below.

Fig. 5 Schematic illustration representing the clustering phenomenon. High

conductivity path results in fast transport of heat along large distances

It was shown that the effective thermal conductivity increased with increasing cluster size.
However, as particle volume fraction increased, the nanofluid with clusters showed relatively
smaller thermal conductivity enhancement. When it comes to interfacial resistance, it was
found that interfacial resistance decreases the enhancement in thermal conductivity, but this
decrease diminishes for nanofluids with large clusters.

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7. Result and Discussion:

7.1 Plot between Temperature and Viscosity:

There are two lines one is for the base fluid without the nano particle and other one is ice dragon fluid
which is a type of nano fluid. As you can from the figure that as we will increase the temperature of
the nano fluid the viscosity will decrease. But the viscosity of the nano fluid decrease by a large
amount compare to the base fluid.

7.2 Variation of thermal conductivity ratio with particle diameter:

As we will increase the particle diameter the thermal conductivity of the nano fluid will increase.
Because as the particle size increase the Brownian motion will decrease and the Brownian motion will
decrease the randomness will decrease and as we know that decrease in randomness will increase the
thermal conductivity. But there is some controversies regarding this because some of the author(Xie et
al.) saying that the thermal conductivity will increase by increase in particle size.

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 ME642-Convective Heat and Mass Transfer, April 2012

7.3 Variation of thermal conductivity with particle volume fraction:

As we increase the particle volume fraction of the nano fluids the thermal conductivity will increases
simultaneously. But from the figure we see that some authors have got different variation of the
thermal conductivity with variation of the nano particle volume fraction.

8. Conclusion:
I. It is seen that there are lot of controversies in the results.
II. Still we can conclude that nanofluids thermal conductivity increases with increment in
particle volume fraction and temperature.
III. The chaotic movement of nano particles increases fluctuation and turbulence of the fluids,
which increases the heat exchange process.
IV. Convective heat transfer coefficient is enhanced by increasing the particle concentration and
the Reynolds number.
V. Ill effects of nanofluids like clustering of nanoparticle, coagulation should be avoided.

9. Suggestion for future

 As the lot of controversies are there, there is always a chance of development of some new
experimental or new numerical methods which can give the new height in this field.
 So we required some more efforts in the research of nano-fluids, this research requires
examine in various field like synthesis, characterization, thermo-physical properties, heat and
mass transport, modelling, and device- as well as system-level applications.
References

1. H. –T. Zhu, Y.-S. Lin, and Y.-S. Yin (2004). A Novel One-Step Chemical Method for
Preparation of Copper Nano-fluids. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 277: 100–103.
2. Indranil Manna, Synthesis, “Characterization and application of nano-fluids An
Overview”.2009
3. Sarit,K.Das., Stephen U. S. Choi “A Review of Heat Transfer in Nanofluids”.2009
4. B.C. Pak, Y. Cho, Hydrodynamic and heat transfer study of dispersed fluids with submicron
metallic oxide particles, Exp. Heat Transfer 11 (1998) 151-170.
5. Y. Xuan, Q. Li, Investigation on convective heat transfer and flow features of nanofluids, J.
Heat Transfer 125 (2003) 151-155.
6. J. Buongiorno, Convective transport in nanofluids, J. Heat Transfer 128 (2006) 240-250.
7. SEZER ÖZERİNÇ, Heat transfer enhancement with nanofluids. May 2010.

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