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APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 87, 153107 2005
The early inspiration of utilizing the enhanced thermal structured and Amorphous Materials Inc., 2 47-nm nomi-
conductivity of base fluid by adding highly conductive par- nal diameter sample Nanophase Inc., and 3 150-nm nomi-
ticles goes back to more than a century ago when first theo- nal diameter Nanostructured and Amorphous Materials Inc.
retically proposed by Maxwell.1 However, the inherent prob- Note that the volume weighted average diameters obtained
lems occurring from the relatively large size of colloidal from the TEM images are 12.92 nm, 49.47 nm, and
particles, such as their sedimentation, clogging, and abrasion, 182.40 nm, respectively. All nanofluid samples were pre-
have been a major obstacle to realize the concept in practice. pared with sufficient duration of sonication so that the nano-
In order to alleviate the pertinent problems, Choi2 pioneered particles are well suspended with minimum coagulation.
in 1995 to use nanofluids based on advanced manufacturing Placing the test apparatus inside a circulating thermal bath
techniques for nano-sized metallic particles with high ther- provides the tested temperature range from 21 to 71 C with
mal conductivities. Since Lee et al.3 made the first measure- 0.01 C accuracy at each specified temperature.
ment for thermal conductivity of nanofluids, various nanof-
luids have been studied to examine the nanofluid thermal
conductivity.47
Particularly over the last two years, a number of theoret-
ical studies812 have been published to predict the thermal
conductivity enhancement of nanofluids, however, they show
excessively large discrepancies between each other and far
from being established as a formidable model that can com-
prehensively describe the physics of nanofluid conductivity.
Experimental investigations are equally scarce in view of
systematic data availability except that the temperature de-
pendence of nanofluid thermal conductivity has been pre-
sented either for limited temperature range13 or for extremely
low concentration ranges.14 In this letter, a systematic experi-
mental result is presented to delineate the individual effects
of the nanoparticle size and nanofluid temperature, for the
case of Al2O3 nanofluids. The experimental findings are
summarized in terms of an empirical correlation function and
its physical interpretation focusing on the aforementioned
effects. In summary, the Brownian mobility of nanoparticles
in the base fluid is proved as the most important factor to
determine the nanofluid thermal conductivity.
Three nanofluid samples Fig. 1 are prepared by soni-
cating monodisperse batches of Al2O3 nanoparticles into
deionized water: 1 11-nm nominal diameter sample Nano-
FIG. 1. TEM photographs 50 000 and volume-weighted particle size
distributions of Al2O3 nanoparticles based on the equivalent diameter con-
a
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; electronic mail: version: a 12.92-nm volume-weighted average diameter, b 49.47-nm,
kkihm@utk.edu and c 182.40-nm.
FIG. 2. Comparison of the empirical correlation with experimental data for FIG. 3. Temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity enhancement
Al2O3 nanofluid thermal conductivity. of three different Al2O3 nanofluids with 11-nm, 47-nm, and 150-nm sized
nanoparticles at 1 and 4 vol % concentration, normalized by the thermal
conductivity of the base fluid at the specific temperature. Symbols represent
A miniaturized conductivity measurement device is de- experimental data and the corresponding curves represent empirical correla-
signed based on the transient hot-wire method15 and the tion, Eqs. 1a and 1b or 1c.
present device, requiring less than the 10 ml sample volume,
is constructed by modifying the previous example of a larger velocity of nanoparticles based on the Einstein diffusion
size.16 The stability of the power supply for the hot-wire theory19
reading uncertainty is specified to be 0.05% by the manufac-
turer, and the uncertainty of the temporal variation of the k bT kb T
VBr = , 4
wire temperature reading is estimated to be 1.20% based on 3d plBF 3d plBF A 10B/TC
the perturbation analysis of the voltage-temperature conver-
sion equation, which is the basis of the operating principle of where kb is the Boltzmann constant, 1.3807 1023 J / K, and
the pertinent technique. The measured thermal conductivity a constant value of 0.17 nm for the mean free path lBF is
of the base fluid water shows maximum deviation of 3.36% used for water for the entire tested temperature range. The
from the standard listed values for the tested temperature mean free path of a molecule is derived as lBF =
range 21 71 C. Using these elementary uncertainties, the 1 / 2n dBF
2
, where n represents the molecular number den-
overall measurement uncertainty for nanofluid thermal con- sity and denotes the collision cross section. The calculated
ductivity is estimated to 3.90% using the Kline-McClintock value of 0.17 nm from the equation for gas is believed to be
uncertainty analysis.17 in a reasonable range to use.20
Based on the Buckingham-Pi theorem with a linear re- Under specified f and dBF, assuming constant k p and
gression for the experimental results Fig. 2, an empirical constant BF for the tested temperature range, the correlation
correlation for the nanofluid effective thermal conductivity, Eq. 1a can be rewritten exclusively in terms of nanoparticle
keff, normalized by the base fluid thermal conductivity, kBF, is diameter and suspension temperature as
given with 95% confidence level as
keff
= 1 + 64.7 f 0.7460
dBF
0.3690
kp 0.7476
keff
kBF
= 1 + const 0.369
PrT0.9955T1.2321
d p kBFT0.74762T
, 1b
6
0.369 Xinwei Wang, Xianfan Xu, and Stephen U. S. Choi, J. Thermophys. Heat
keff 1 T1.2321 Transfer 13, 474 1999.
= 1 + const . 1c
kBF dp 102.4642B/TC 7
Huaquing Xie, Jinchang Wang, Tonggen Xi, Yan Liu, Fei Ai, and Qingren
Wu, J. Appl. Phys. 91, 4568 2002.
8
P. Keblinski, S. R. Phillpot, S. U. S. Choi, and J. A. Eastman, Int. J. Heat
Mass Transfer 45, 855 2002.
9
W. Yu and S. U. S. Choi, J. Nanopart. Res. 5, 167 2003.
10
Yimin Xuan, Qiang Li, and Weifeng Hu, AIChE J. 49, 1038 2003.
11
S. P. Jang and S. U. S. Choi, Appl. Phys. Lett. 84, 4316 2004.
12
D. Hemanth Kumar, Hrishikesh E. Patel, V. R. Rajeev Kumar,
T. Sundararajan, T. Pradeep, and Sarit K. Das, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 144301
2004.
13
S. K. Das, N. Putra, P. Thiesen, and W. Roegzel, ASME J. Heat Transfer
125, 567 2003.
14
Hrishikesh E. Patel, Sarit K. Das, T. Sundararajan, A. Sreekumaran Nair,
Beena George, and T. Pradeep, Appl. Phys. Lett. 83, 2931 2003.
15
Y. Nagasaka and A. Nagashima, J. Phys. E 14, 1435 1981.
16
S. P. Lee, M. H. Lee, M. T. Kim, and J. M. Oh, Trans. Korean Soc. Mec.
Eng. 28, 510 2004.
17
S. J. Kline and F. A. McClintock, Mech. Eng. Am. Soc. Mech. Eng. 75,
3 1953.
18
R. W. Fox, A. T. McDonald, and P. J. Pritchard, Introduction to Fluid
Mechanics, 6th ed. Wiley, New York, 2004, p. 724.
19
A. Einstein, Investigation on the Theory of Brownian Movement Dover,
New York, 1956.
20
FIG. 5. Correlation between the Brownian velocities and nanofluid tempera- W. G. Vincenti and C. H. Kruger Jr., Introduction to Physical Gas Dynam-
ture for different nanoparticle sizes for Al2O3 nanofluids at 1 vol %. ics Krieger, New York, 1965, Chaps. 1 and 2.
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