Fabrication, Characterization and Thermophysical Property Evaluation of SiC Nanofluids for Heat Transfer Applications

Abstract

Nanofluids (NFs) are nanotechnology-based colloidal suspensions fabricated by suspending nanoparticles (NPs) in a base liquid. These fluids have shown potential to improve the heat transfer properties of conventional heat transfer fluids. In this study we report in detail on fabrication, characterization and thermo-physical property evaluation of SiC NFs, prepared using SiC NPs with different crystal structures, for heat transfer applications. For this purpose, a series of SiC NFs containing SiC NPs with different crystal structure (α-SiC and β-SiC) were fabricated in a water (W)/ethylene glycol (EG) mixture (50/50 wt% ratio). Physicochemical properties of NPs/NFs were characterized by using various techniques, such as powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fouriertransform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), dynamic light scattering (DLS) and Zeta potential analysis. Thermo-physical properties including thermal conductivity (TC) and viscosity for NFs containing SiC particles (α-and β-phase) weremeasured. The results show among all suspensions NFs fabricated with α-SiC particles have more favorable thermo-physical properties compared to the NFs fabricated with β-SiC.The observed difference is attributed to combination of several factors, including crystal structure (β-vs. α-), sample purity, and residual chemicals exhibited on SiCNFs. A TC enhancement of ∼20% while 14% increased viscosity were obtained for NFs containing 9 wt% of particular type of α-SiC NPs indicating promising capability of this kind of NFs for further heat transfer characteristics investigation.

Stability and enhanced thermal conductivity of ethylene glycol-based SiC nanofluids

“…For example, to the best of authors' knowledge, limited studies have been reported about the enhanced thermal conductivity of SiC nanofluids [22][23][24][25][26]. Bang et al [22] investigated the TC of deionized water based SiC nanofluids, and approximately 7.2% of enhancement was found compared with deionized water.…”

“…The study of Paul et al [23] showed that the TC of water-based SiC nanofluids can be enhanced by 12% with only 0.1 vol.% nanoparticles. The mixture of EG and H 2 O based SiC nanofluids were studied by Timofeeva et al [24,25] and Toprak et al [26]. The reported nanofluids displayed 1.5-20% TC enhancement with different nanoparticles concentrations and sizes.…”

Heat transfer characteristics of a two-phase closed thermosyphons using nanofluids based on sic nanoparticles

“…In the last decade, researchers were focusing on the measurement of both thermal conductivity and viscosity of the silicon carbide [1,[3][4][5][6][7][8]. Also, few studies were performed on heat transfer characteristics of the two-phase thermosyphon using silicon carbide [9][10][11].…”

“…Studies concerning the fabricate SiC nanofluids with different SiC crystalline phases (α-SiC and β-SiC) in order to investigate comparatively physicochemical and thermophysical properties of SiC nanofluids in H2O /EG mixture (50/50 wt% ratio) were performed by Nikkam et al [8]. Their results indicated that nanofluids based on α-SiC nanoparticles have better thermo-physical properties compared with nanofluids based on β -SiC nanoparticles.…”

Improvement of heat transfer characteristics of cylindrical heat pipe by using SiC nanofluids

“…These features make heat pipe as a common apparatus in many thermal applications such as electronic cooling, aerospace, solar system and heat conductivity dispersed in the base fluid. It has been revealed that nanofluids have improved heat transfer characteristics than traditional heat transfer fluids [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. During recent years, nanofluids are widely tested as working fluids to improve thermal performance of heat pipes [9][10][11][12][13][14].…”