Development of the solid–liquid interface, distribution of the particle concentration field, as well as the development of thermosolutal convection during solidification of colloidal suspensions in a differentially heated cavity are investigated. The numerical model is based on the one-fluid mixture approach combined with the single-domain enthalpy porosity model for phase change, and it is implemented in fluent software package. The linear dependence of the liquidus and solidus temperatures with the concentration of the nanoparticles was assumed. A colloidal suspension consisting of water and copper or alumina nanoparticles were considered. In the current investigation, the nanoparticle size selected was 5 and 2 nm. The suspension was solidified unidirectionally inside a square differentially heated cavity that was cooled from the left side. It was found that the solid–liquid interface changed its morphology from a planar shape to a dendritic one as the solidification process proceeds in time, due to the constitutional supercooling that resulted from the increased concentration of particles at the solid–liquid interface rejected from the crystalline phase. Initially, the flow consisted of two vortices rotating in opposite directions. However, at later times, only one counter clockwise rotating cell survived. Changing the material of the particle to alumina resulted in crystallized phase with a higher concentration of particles. If it is compared to that of the solid phase resulted from freezing the copper–water colloidal suspension. Decreasing the segregation coefficient destabilizes the solid–liquid interface and increases the intensity of the convection cell with respect to that of the case of no particle rejection. At slow freezing rates, the resulting crystal phase consisted of lower particle content compared to the case of higher freezing rate.

Nanostructure-enhanced phase change materials (NePCM) have been widely studied in recent years due to their enhanced thermal conductivity and improved charge/discharge in thermal energy storage applications. In this study, the effect of the size of the nanoparticles on the morphology of the solid–liquid interface and the evolving concentration field during solidification is reported. Combining a one-fluid-mixture approach with the single-domain enthalpy-porosity model for phase change and assuming a linear dependence of the liquidus and solidus temperatures of the mushy zone on the local concentration of the nanoparticles subject to a constant value of the segregation coefficient, thermal-solutal convection as well as the Brownian and thermophoretic effects are taken into account. A square cavity containing a suspension of copper nanoparticles (diameter of 5 and 2 nm) in water was the model NePCM considered. Subject to a 5 °C temperature difference between the hot (top) and cold (bottom) sides and with an initial loading of the nanoparticles equal to 10 wt. % (1.22 vol. %), the colloid was solidified from the bottom. The solid–liquid interface for the case of NePCM with 5 nm particle size was almost planar throughout the solidification process. However, for the case of the NePCM with particle size of 2 nm, the solid–liquid interface evolved from a stable planar shape to an unstable dendritic structure. This transition was attributed to the constitutional supercooling effect, whereby the rejected particles that are pushed away from the interface into the liquid zone form regions of high concentration thus leading to a lower solidus temperature. Moreover, for the smaller particle size of 2 nm, the ensuing solutal convection at the liquid–solid interface due to the concentration gradient is affected by the increased Brownian diffusivity. Due to size-dependent rejection of nanoparticles, the frozen layer that resulted from a dendritic growth contains regions of depleted concentration. Despite the higher thermal conductivity of the colloids, the amount of frozen phase during a fixed time period diminished as the particle size decreased.

Highly-conductive nanostructures may be dispersed into phase change materials (PCM) to improve their effective thermal conductivity, thus leading to colloidal systems that are referred to as nanostructure-enhanced PCM (NePCM). Results of a theoretical and experimental investigation on freezing of NePCM in comparison to the base PCM are presented. A one-dimensional Stefan model was developed to study the unidirectional freezing of NePCM in a finite slab. Only the thermal energy equation was considered and the presence of static dispersed nanoparticles was modeled using effective media relations. A combination of analytical and integral methods was used to solve this moving boundary problem. The elapsed time to form a given thickness of frozen layer was therefore predicted numerically. A cooled-from-bottom unidirectional freezing experimental setup was designed, constructed, and tested. Thermocouple readings were recorded at several equally spaced locations along the freezing direction in order to monitor the progress of the freezing front. As an example, cyclohexane (C 6 H 12 ) and copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticles were chosen to prepare the NePCM samples. The effective thermophysical and transport properties of these samples for various particle loadings (0.5/3.8, 1/7.5, and 2/14.7 vol. %/wt. %) were determined using the mixture and Maxwell models. Due to utilization of the Maxwell model for thermal conductivity of both phases, the numerical predictions showed that the freezing time is shortened linearly with increasing particle loading, whereas nonmonotonic expediting was observed experimentally. The maximum expediting was found to be nearly 8.23% for the 0.5 vol. % sample. In the absence of a nanoparticle transport model, the mismatch of the cold plate boundary conditions, lack of accurate thermophysical properties, especially in the solid phase of NePCM samples and precipitation issues with 2 vol. % samples were addressed by improving the experimental setup. Through adopting a copper cold plate, utilizing measured thermal conductivity data for both phases and using 1, 2, and 4 wt. % samples, good agreement between the experimental and numerical results were realized. Specifically, adoption of measured thermal conductivity values for the solid phase in the Stefan model that were originally underestimated proved to be a major cause of harmony between the experiments and predictions.

In this paper, the evaporation kinetics of microliter-sized sessile droplets of gold colloids (∼250 nm in particle diameters) was experimentally studied on micropatterned superhydrophobic surfaces, compared with those of pure water on a planar hydrophobic surface. The structural microtopography of superhydrophobic surfaces was designed to have a constant air fraction (∼0.8) but varying array patterns including pillars, lines, and wells. During evaporation in a room condition, the superhydrophobic surfaces exhibited a stronger pinning effect than a planar surface, especially in the initial evaporation stage, with significant variations by the surface topographies. Compared to a pure water droplet, colloids exhibited further promoted pinning effects, mainly in the later stage of evaporation. While the well-known evaporative mass transport law of sessile droplets (i.e., linear law of “ V 2 / 3 ∝ t ”) was generally applicable to the superhydrophobic surfaces, much smaller evaporation rate constants were measured on the patterned superhydrophobic surfaces than on a planar hydrophobic surface. A colloidal droplet further showed lower evaporation rate constants than a pure water droplet as the concentration of particles in the droplets increased over the evaporation. Such transition was more dramatic on a planar surface than on the micropatterned surfaces. Whereas there was no clear correlation between evaporation mode and the evaporation rate observed on the superhydrophobic surfaces, the prominent decrease of the evaporation rate on the planar hydrophobic surface was accompanied with the onset of a second pinning mode.

Nanofluids have been proposed as a promising candidate for advanced heat transfer fluids in a variety of important engineering applications ranging from energy storage and electronics cooling to thermal processing of materials. In spite of the extensive studies in the literature, a consensus is lacking on if and how the dispersed nanoparticles alter the thermal transport in convective flows. In this work, an experimental investigation was conducted to study single-phase forced convection of Al 2 O 3 -water nanofluid in a circular minichannel with a 1.09 mm inner diameter. The friction factor and convection heat transfer coefficients were measured for nanofluids of various volume concentrations (up to 5%) and were compared with those of the base fluid. The Reynolds number (Re) varied from 600 to 4500, covering the laminar, transition, and early fully developed turbulent regions. It was found that in the laminar region, the nanofluids exhibit pronounced entrance region behaviors possibly due to the flattening of the velocity profile caused by the flow-induced particle migration. Three new observations were made for nanofluids in the transition and turbulent regions: (1) The onset of transition to turbulence is delayed; (2) both the friction factor and the convective heat transfer coefficient are below those of water at the same Re in the transition flow; and (3) once fully developed turbulence is established, the difference in the flow and heat transfer of nanofluids and water will diminish. A simple scaling analysis was used to show that these behaviors may be attributed to the variation in the relative size of the nanoparticle with respect to the turbulent microscales at different Re. The results from this work suggest that the particle-fluid interaction has a significant impact on the flow physics of nanofluids, especially in the transition and turbulent regions. Consequently, as a heat transfer fluid, nanofluids should be used in either the laminar flow or the fully developed turbulent flow at sufficiently high Re in order to yield enhanced heat transfer performance.

Silica nanoparticles (1% by weight) were dispersed in a eutectic of lithium carbonate and potassium carbonate (62:38 ratio) to obtain high temperature nanofluids. A differential scanning calorimeter instrument was used to measure the specific heat of the neat molten salt eutectic and after addition of nanoparticles. The specific heat of the nanofluid was enhanced by 19–24%. The measurement uncertainty for the specific heat values in the experiments is estimated to be in the range of 1–5%. These experimental data contradict earlier experimental results reported in the literature. (Notably, the stability of the nanofluid samples was not verified in these studies.) In the present study, the dispersion and stability of the nanoparticles were confirmed by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Percolation networks were observed in the SEM image of the nanofluid. Furthermore, no agglomeration of the nanoparticles was observed, as confirmed by transmission electron microscopy. The observed enhancements are suggested to be due to the high specific surface energies that are associated with the high surface area of the nanoparticles per unit volume (or per unit mass).

We show that heat transfer in microchannels can be considerably augmented by introducing droplets or slugs of an immiscible liquid into the main fluid flow. We numerically investigate the influence of differently shaped colloidal or simply pure immiscible droplets to the main liquid flow on the thermal transport in microchannels. Results of parametric studies on the influence of all major factors connected to microchannel heat transfer are presented. The effect of induced Marangoni flow at the liquid interfaces is also taken into account and quantified. The calculation of the multiphase, multispecies flow problem is performed, applying a front tracking method, extended to account for nanoparticle transport in the suspended phase when relevant. This study reveals that the use of a second suspended liquid (with or without nanoparticles) is an efficient way to significantly increase the thermal performance without unacceptably large pressure losses. In the case of slug-train coflow, the Nusselt number can be increased by as much as 400% compared with single liquid flow.

We show that a large set of nanofluid thermal conductivity data falls within the upper and lower Maxwell bounds for homogeneous systems. This indicates that the thermal conductivity of nanofluids is largely dependent on whether the nanoparticles stay dispersed in the base fluid, form large aggregates, or assume a percolating fractal configuration. The experimental data, which are strikingly analogous to those in most solid composites and liquid mixtures, provide strong evidence for the classical nature of thermal conduction in nanofluids.

It is shown that addition of alumina, zinc-oxide, and diamond particles can enhance the critical heat flux (CHF) limit of water in flow boiling. The particles used here were in the nanometer range ( < 100 nm ) and at low concentration ( ≤ 0.1 vol % ) . The CHF tests were conducted at 0.1 MPa and at three different mass fluxes ( 1500 kg / m 2 s , 2000 kg / m 2 s , and 2500 kg / m 2 s ). The thermal conditions at CHF were subcooled. The maximum CHF enhancement was 53%, 53%, and 38% for alumina, zinc oxide, and diamond, respectively, always obtained at the highest mass flux. A postmortem analysis of the boiling surface reveals that its morphology is altered by deposition of the particles during boiling. Additionally, the wettability of the surface is substantially increased, which seems to correlate well with the observed CHF enhancement.

The turbulent convective heat transfer behavior of alumina ( Al 2 O 3 ) and zirconia ( Zr O 2 ) nanoparticle dispersions in water is investigated experimentally in a flow loop with a horizontal tube test section at various flow rates ( 9000 < Re < 63,000 ) , temperatures ( 21 – 76 ° C ) , heat fluxes (up to ∼ 190 kW ∕ m 2 ), and particle concentrations ( 0.9 – 3.6 vol % and 0.2 – 0.9 vol % for Al 2 O 3 and Zr O 2 , respectively). The experimental data are compared to predictions made using the traditional single-phase convective heat transfer and viscous pressure loss correlations for fully developed turbulent flow, Dittus–Boelter, and Blasius/MacAdams, respectively. It is shown that if the measured temperature- and loading-dependent thermal conductivities and viscosities of the nanofluids are used in calculating the Reynolds, Prandtl, and Nusselt numbers, the existing correlations accurately reproduce the convective heat transfer and viscous pressure loss behavior in tubes. Therefore, no abnormal heat transfer enhancement was observed in this study.

Many studies have shown that addition of nanosized particles to water enhances the critical heat flux (CHF) in pool boiling. The resulting colloidal dispersions are known in the literature as nanofluids. However, for most potential applications of nanofluids the situation of interest is flow boiling. This technical note presents first-of-a-kind data for flow boiling CHF in nanofluids. It is shown that a significant CHF enhancement (up to ∼ 30 % ) can be achieved with as little as 0.01% by volume concentration of alumina nanoparticles in flow experiments at atmospheric pressure, low subcooling ( < 20 ° C ) , and relatively high mass flux ( ⩾ 1000 kg ∕ m 2 s ) .

Nanofluids, i.e., liquids containing nanometer sized metallic or nonmetallic solid particles, show an increase in thermal conductivity compared to that of the pure liquid. In this paper, a simple model for predicting thermal conductivity of nanofluids based on Brownian motion of nanoparticles in the liquid is developed. A general expression for the effective thermal conductivity of a colloidal suspension is derived by using ensemble averaging under the assumption of small departures from equilibrium and the presence of pairwise additive interaction potential between the nanoparticles. The resulting expression for thermal conductivity enhancement is applied to the nanofluids with a polar base fluid, such as water or ethylene glycol, by assuming an effective double layer repulsive potential between pairs of nanoparticles. It is shown that the model predicts a particle size and temperature dependent thermal conductivity enhancement. The results of the calculation are compared with the experimental data for various nanofluids containing metallic and nonmetallic nanoparticles.

Here we show through an order-of-magnitude analysis that the enhancement in the effective thermal conductivity of nanofluids is due mainly to the localized convection caused by the Brownian movement of the nanoparticles. We also introduce a convective-conductive model which accurately captures the effects of particle size, choice of base liquid, thermal interfacial resistance between the particles and liquid, temperature, etc. This model is a combination of the Maxwell-Garnett (MG) conduction model and the convection caused by the Brownian movement of the nanoparticles, and reduces to the MG model for large particle sizes. The model is in good agreement with data on water, ethylene glycol, and oil-based nanofluids, and shows that the lighter the nanoparticles, the greater the convection effect in the liquid, regardless of the thermal conductivity of the nanoparticles.

Nanofluids are engineered colloids made of a base fluid and nanoparticles ( 1 - 100 nm ) . Nanofluids have higher thermal conductivity and single-phase heat transfer coefficients than their base fluids. In particular, the heat transfer coefficient increases appear to go beyond the mere thermal-conductivity effect, and cannot be predicted by traditional pure-fluid correlations such as Dittus-Boelter’s. In the nanofluid literature this behavior is generally attributed to thermal dispersion and intensified turbulence, brought about by nanoparticle motion. To test the validity of this assumption, we have considered seven slip mechanisms that can produce a relative velocity between the nanoparticles and the base fluid. These are inertia, Brownian diffusion, thermophoresis, diffusiophoresis, Magnus effect, fluid drainage, and gravity. We concluded that, of these seven, only Brownian diffusion and thermophoresis are important slip mechanisms in nanofluids. Based on this finding, we developed a two-component four-equation nonhomogeneous equilibrium model for mass, momentum, and heat transport in nanofluids. A nondimensional analysis of the equations suggests that energy transfer by nanoparticle dispersion is negligible, and thus cannot explain the abnormal heat transfer coefficient increases. Furthermore, a comparison of the nanoparticle and turbulent eddy time and length scales clearly indicates that the nanoparticles move homogeneously with the fluid in the presence of turbulent eddies, so an effect on turbulence intensity is also doubtful. Thus, we propose an alternative explanation for the abnormal heat transfer coefficient increases: the nanofluid properties may vary significantly within the boundary layer because of the effect of the temperature gradient and thermophoresis. For a heated fluid, these effects can result in a significant decrease of viscosity within the boundary layer, thus leading to heat transfer enhancement. A correlation structure that captures these effects is proposed.

Interfacial phenomena and ebullient dynamics in saturated nucleate pool boiling of aqueous solutions of three surfactants that have different molecular weight and ionic nature are experimentally investigated. The additive molecular mobility at interfaces manifests in a dynamic surface tension behavior (surfactant adsorption–desorption at the liquid–vapor interface), and varying surface wetting (contact angle) with concentration (surfactant physisorption at the solid–liquid interface). This tends to change, enhance, and control the boiling behavior significantly, and an optimum heat transfer enhancement is obtained in solutions at or near the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of the surfactant. Furthermore, wettability (contact angle) is observed to be a function of the molecular makeup of the reagent, and shows distinct regions of change along the adsorption isotherm that are associated with the aggregation mode of adsorbed ions at the solid–water interface. This distinguishably alters the ebullience from not only that in pure water, but also between pre- and post-CMC solutions. Increased wetting tends to suppress nucleation and bubble growth, thereby weakening the boiling process.

Saturated, nucleate pool boiling on a horizontal, cylindrical heater and the associated bubble dynamics in aqueous solutions of cationic surfactants of different molecular weight and ethoxylation or ethylene oxide (EO) content, are experimentally investigated. Boiling curves q w ″ ∝ Δ T sat for different concentrations and photographic records of the salient features of the ebullient behavior are presented, along with a characterization of interfacial properties (surface tension and contact angle). The surfactant additive significantly alters the nucleate boiling in water and enhances the heat transfer. The enhancement increases with concentration, with an optimum obtained in solutions at or near the critical micelle concentration (c.m.c.) of the surfactant. The photographic and visual observations indicate a markedly different boiling behavior than that of water, as well as between pre- and post-c.m.c. solutions. A lower molecular weight surfactant tends to reduce surface tension faster, and show better enhancement performance than its higher molecular weight counterpart. With EO groups in its molecular chain the surfactant solution becomes more hydrophilic, and the higher wettability tends to suppress nucleation, thereby weakening the boiling process. Also, enhancement in pre-micellar solutions is shown to depend on the dynamic surface tension, and the number of EO groups in and molecular weight of the surfactant.

Active control of radiation heat transfer in liquids can be accomplished with the use of a class of fluids referred to here as electro-controllable (EC) fluids. EC fluids in general consist of a colloidal suspension of polarizable, micron-size particles dispersed in a carrier fluid with an appropriate dielectric constant. When an electric field is applied, the particles redistribute in the fluid, changing from a uniformly dispersed configuration to a tightly organized chain formation that follows the lines of the electric field, thus causing a change in the thermal radiation transport. In an example application, experiments are conducted and models are developed for thermal radiation transmittance through a composite window featuring a central layer of EC fluid. The specific EC fluids of this study are made of micron-sized Zeolite particles suspended in a light Silicone oil carrier fluid of appropriate dielectric strength. The incident thermal radiation ranged in wavelength between 500 nm and 800 nm, and the strength of the applied electric field ranged from 100 V/mm to 500 V/mm. The models are applicable for both the dispersed organizational state and the field induced chained state. Absorption was demonstrated to be the fundamental radiation transport property enabling the control process. The EC fluid transmittance predicted by these models are compared to the data obtained by experimental measurement demonstrate very good agreement.