International Journal of Nanoscience Vol. 1, No.

1 (2007) 14 World Scientific Publishing Company

EFFECTS OF THERMAL LOADING ON NANOFLUID BEHAVIOUR

SUDIPTA SOM Department of Applied Physics, Indian School of Mines Dhanbad, Jharkhand -826004, India
sudipta.som@gmail.com

SUBHRAKANTI CHAKRABORTY
R&D and Scientific Services, TATA Steel Ltd. Jamshedpur, Jharkhand- 831001, India subhrakanti@tatasteel.com SANDIP K SAHA R&D and Scientific Services, TATA Steel Ltd. Jamshedpur, Jharkhand- 831001, India sandip.saha@tatasteel.com SUMITESH DAS R&D and Scientific Services, TATA Steel Ltd. Jamshedpur, Jharkhand- 831001, India sumitesh.das@tatasteel.com Received Day Month Year (14 November 2009)
The paper investigates the effect of thermal loading on viscosity and electrical conductivity of weakly dosed nanofluids. Two types of thermal loadings are examined: (a) a continuous increasing loading from sub-ambient 5 C to 40 C, (b) a heating (5 C 45 C) followed by cooling (45 C 5 C) loading. Results show that electrical conductivity is weakly dependent on thermal loading and is strongly dependent on nano-particle type. Viscosity shows a strong relationship with thermal loading but is weakly nano-particle dependent. Both electrical conductivity and viscosity show weak hysteresis during the cyclic thermal loading for low dosages. This finding is in contrast for a strong hysteresis pattern reported by Nguyen et al. [1] for highly dosed nanofluids. Keywords: Nanofluids, Viscosity, Electrical conductivity, Hysteresis.

1. Introduction Nanofluid is a mixture of solid nano particles with average particle size smaller than 100 nm, uniformly dispersed in a base fluid like water, ethylene glycol, engine oil etc [2]. The nanofluid can enhance the heat transfer performance better than any other heat transfer fluid. Most of the research on the nanofluid as heat transfer fluid is concentrated on its performance at ambient and higher temperature. Although, it is more or less obvious that at very low temperatures,
1

nanofluid can substantially enhance the heat transfer (e.g. extraction) performance of system and there is a very small amount of work available in this area. Moreover, in authors knowledge, till date there is no study reported on the properties of nanofluid even at temperatures less than the room temperature. The present study is aimed at the investigation on viscosity and thermal conductivity behaviour of metallic oxide nanofluids at moderately low temperatures (e.g. 5 - 40 C). Viscosity and electrical conductivity are two of the most important transport

Som et al.

properties of a colloidal dispersion. These properties play an important role in governing the flow behaviour, heat transfer and colloidal stability of a dispersion. Hence, a detail analysis of these two properties is of utmost importance for scientific analysis of the nanofluid properties. In this study the two transport properties, viz. electrical conductivity and viscosity of ZnO, TiO2 and SiO2 nanofluids are measured against the temperature variation in the subambient temperature regime. This study is also carried out in both the heating and the cooling phases. 2. Experimental procedure Random shape nano particles of ZnO, TiO2 and SiO2 are selected for the present study. SEM studies using FESEM, SUPRA 25 (Ziess, Germany) reveals the particle sizes in the following ranges: (a) TiO2 (24- 28 nm) (b) SiO2 (38 122 nm) (c) ZnO (58 77 nm) This sizes are representative of the enter material used in the study. The appropriate quantity of nanoparticles is mixed using a ultrasonic bath for 20 mins. No surfactants are used for the study. A noble experimental procedure is developed to impose the thermal loading. These are (a) Continuous heating from a sub-ambient temperature 5 C to a higher temperature of 45 C. (b) Heating following by cooling. The lowest temperature attempted is 5 C that is obtained by putting the as-is room temperature. Stable nanofluid in a refrigerator for heating up and cooling the sample and indigenous method as schematically outlined in figure 1 is employed. The design consists of two containers- the inner one containing the experimental nanofluid and the outer one contains the medium for applying the thermal load. During the heating process the medium is heated up using additional amount of hot water. During the cooling process the medium is ice that is gradually added. RTDs are used to measure the temperature of the experimental nanofluid. A vibro-viscometer (SV10) and electrical conductivity meter (Cond 340i/ SBT WTW, Germany) is used to measure the change viscosity and electrical conductivity.

Fig. 1: Schematic diagram of experimental setup

3. Results and Discussions The behaviour of the nanofluid subject to a single thermal load is examined. Figure 2 shows the nanofluid behaviour of TiO2, ZnO and SiO2 as a function of temperature. It is observed that there is a marginal 2~5% change in the electrical conductivity value over the temperature range of 5- 20 C. Figure 3 shows the viscosity behaviour as a function of rising temperature. The effect here is of the order of 35- 48 C as the temperature rises from 5- 25 C. The effect of nanoparticle type is slightly pronounced at higher temperature. The results of the cycle thermal load are presented next. Here the nanofluid is first heated up using the procedure outlined in the earlier section. Figure 4 shows the behaviour of electrical conductivity in thermal loading. The nanoparticle type effect is similar to that in figure 3. Only a weak hysteresis is observed for the ZnO nanofluid. Figure 5 shows the effect on viscosity for the cyclic loading condition. There is a prominent hysteresis loop for all nanofluids including DM water. Nguyen et al. conducted experiments with Al2O3 at higher concentrations of 7% and reported a hysteresis effect. Table 1 compares the different experimental conditions used by Nguyen et al. and the present authors. Two observations are pertinent: (a) The time taken for heating and cooling is substantially higher than the present study. (b) A higher concentration of 1~7% compare to 0.025% in the present study.

Effect of nanoparticles on electrical conductivity and viscosity under cyclic temperature pattern
Temperature Vs. Electrical conductivity graph 1000 TiO2 DM water ZnO SiO2

Electrical conductivity (micro S/Cm)

This is observed for the low concentration of 1% and 4% Al2O3 in the experiments of Nguyen et al.

800

600

400

200

0 0 5 10 15 20 25 Temperature(oC)

Fig. 2: Temperature variation of electrical conductivity during heating cycle

1.8
TiO2

1.7 1.6 1.5

Viscosity ( m Pa.S)

ZnO DM Water SiO2

Fig. 5: Temperature variation of viscosity during heating and cooling cycle Temp. vs viscosity graph
2.5 TiO2 1 % Al2O3 4 % Al2O3 7% Al2O3

1.4 1.3
Viscosity(m Pa.S)

1.2 1.1 1 0.9 0.8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Temperature ( oC)

1.5

0.5

Fig. 3: Temperature variation of viscosity during heating cycle

900
ZnO

0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Temperature(oC)

Fig. 6: Heating-cooling comparison curve for viscosity variation with Al2O3 and TiO2 nanofluids Table 1: Comparison between Nguyen experiments Experiment performed by Nguyen et al. Time taken for 240 mins heating (approximately) Time taken for 300 mins cooling (approximately) Temperature 20 0C to 80 0C range Particle used Al2O3 Particle size 47 nm et al. and the present Present experiment

800

SiO2 TiO2 DM Water

Electrical Conductivity ( micro S/Cm)

700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

10 mins

45

50

50 mins 5 0C to 40 0C /20 0C SiO2, ZnO, TiO2 TiO2 (24- 28 nm) SiO2 (38 122 nm) ZnO (58 77 nm) 0.025%

Temperature (oC)

Fig. 4: Temperature variation of electrical conductivity during heating and cooling cycle

Figure 6 compares the findings of the present author with those of Nguyen et al. The hysteresis loop is only for the higher concentration of 7% and above. Time for supplying the thermal load in terms of heating and cooling rates does not affect the hysteresis pattern.

Concentration (in volume fraction)

7%

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4. Conclusions In the present paper, the effect of temperature on electrical conductivity and viscosity of three nanofluids (TiO2, SiO2 and ZnO) as compared with the base fluid (i.e. D.M water) is investigated. The following conclusions can be drawn, (a) The electrical conductivity is weakly dependent on thermal loading (b) Electrical conductivity is a strong function of nanoparticle type. (c) On the other hand, the viscosity of nanofluids is a strong function of temperature (variation is 3548%), which decreases with increase in temperature in the sub-ambient range. (d) Low concentration shows negligible amount of hysteresis in a temperature cycle for the range of volume fraction tested. Acknowledgement The authors acknowledge Dr. D. Rautray and Dr. Sachin Parashar, TATA Chemicals innovation cenre for supply of ZnO and SiO2 sample for the present study. The authors also acknowledge TATA Steel Ltd. for the permission to publish the research work. References 1. C. T. Nguyen et al., (2008), International Journal of
Thermal Sciences, 47, 103111.

2. S. K. Das, S. U. S. Choi and H. B. Patil, (2006), Heat

transfer Engg., 295, 3-19.