NANO FLUID PHASE CHANGE MATERIAL

NANO FLUID

A nano fluid is a fluid containing nanometer sized particles known as nano particles.
These fluids are engineered colloidal suspensions of nano particles in a base fluid. The nano
particles generally used in nano fluids are typically made of metals, oxides, carbides and carbon
nano tubes. The base fluids generally used are water, ethylene glycol and oil.

The selection of material for nano particles and base fluid depends on the target
application. The target applications for nano fluids include cooling application, nano
lubrication, petroleum refining, etc. The major application is cooling process (coolants). This
is due to their enhanced thermal properties. The major properties that are useful for nano fluids
are their enhanced thermal conductivity and viscosity.

The major advantages are :

 High specific surface area and therefore more surface for heat transfer between particels
and fluids.
 High dispersion stability with predominant Brownian motion of particles.
 Reduced pumping power as compared to pure liquid to achieve equivalent heat transfer
intensification.
 Reduced particle clogging as compared to conventional slurries, thus promoting system
miniaturization.

The higher heat conduction of nano fluid is due to the larger available surface area of
the nano particles. Nano particles having surface area less than 20nm have 20% of their atoms
on their surface. Another advantage is the mobility of the particles, attributable to the tiny size,
which may bring about micro-convection of fluid and hence increased heat transfer. The micro-
convection and increased heat transfer may also increase dispersion of heat in the fluid at a
faster rate. It is already found that the thermal conductivity of nanofluids increases significantly
with a rise in temperature.
 TEM image of Nano particle dispersed fluid

The major Nano particles employed for Nano fluids particularly for heat applications are:

 Copper oxide nano particles

 Aluminium oxide nano particles
 Carbon nano tubes
 Titanium oxide nano particles
 Carbon Nano fibers
 Graphene

Copper Oxide Nano particles:

Copper oxide is a semiconductor metal with unique optical, electrical and magnetic
properties and it has been used for various applications, such as the development of
supercapacitors, near-infrared filters, in magnetic storage media, sensors, catalysis,
semiconductors, etc. Due to the High thermal conductivity of copper, copper oxide is the
natural choice for Nano particles to prepare Nano fluid. It has been reported that 4 % addition
of CuO nano particles has improved the thermal conductivity of water by 20%. Copper oxide
Nano particles with monoclinic structure have been prepared by aqueous precipitation method.
Copper oxide Nano particles have a brownish black colour.
Aluminium Oxide nano particles:

Alpha Al2O3 nanoparticles water dispersion with phase stability, high hardness, and
good dimensional stability, it can be widely used in plastics, rubber, ceramics, refractory
products. In particular, it can significantly improve ceramics density, smoothness, thermal
fatigue resistance, fracture toughness, creep resistance and polymer products wear resistance.
Also, αlpha Al2O3 nanoparticles water dispersion is a promising material of far infrared
emission, as the far-infrared emission and thermal insulation materials are used in chemical
fiber products and high-pressure sodium lamp.

Carbon Nano tubes:

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are cylindrical large molecules consisting of a hexagonal

arrangement of hybridized carbon atoms, which may by formed by rolling up a single sheet of
graphene (single-walled carbon nanotubes, SWCNTs) or by rolling up multiple sheets of
graphene (multiwalled carbon nanotubes, MWCNTs). Carbon nanotubes (CNTs)
are allotropes of carbon with a cylindrical nanostructure. These
cylindrical carbon molecules have unusual properties, which are valuable
for nanotechnology, electronics, optics, and other fields of materials science and technology.
Owing to the material's exceptional strength and stiffness, nanotubes have been constructed
with a length-to-diameter ratio of up to 132,000,000:1,[1]significantly larger than that for any
other material.

Carbon nano fibres :

Carbon fibre is the carbon content of greater than 90 % of the fibres collectively. It was
developed a kind of new materials since 1960s. In the beginning, carbon fibre was only applied
to traffic, industrial building and space. It has proportions as high coefficient of thermal
conductivity (about 10 ~ 140 W/(m·K)), small in size, high tension, high elasticity and low
thermal expansion coefficient, etc. Therefore, carbon fibre has been gradually used to improve
the performance of thermal conductivity of PCM.