Heat Transfer Characteristics of 1-D Ferromagnetic Nanofluid

Abstract

Improving the efficiency of the cooling medium to increase productivity and decrease energy consumption is one of the biggest challenges in the current world. Industries, including transportation, manufacturing, and electronic devices, etc. need efficient thermal management and can benefit from the use of efficient cooling media. Industrial coolants i.e. water, ethylene glycol (EG), or mineral oils have long been used for heat transport though the low thermal conductivity (TC) of these coolants has made them inefficient options for high-performance operations. Metal nanofluids can be potential candidates to replace these inefficient coolants because of their superior thermal properties such as high thermal conductivity, diffusivity, and heat transfer coefficient compared to the base fluids. Nanofluids are a stable suspension of nanoparticles in base media which can offer better thermal conductivity and efficiency. However, preparing stable suspension is one of the major challenges of preparing nanofluids as nanoparticles can aggregate faster over time because of their high surface energy which in turn can have an adverse effect on thermal properties. So far, most research investigations have been done on 0-D nanofluids whereas 1-D nanostructure-based nanofluid study is still very limited. In this work, we have developed a suitable route to prepare novel water-based Cobalt nanowire nanofluids and studied their thermal conductivities. Our study shows that the prepared nanofluid is stable and the thermal conductivity is increased by up to 8.5% compared to base fluid (water).