Study of thermal conductivity of nanofluids for the application of heat transfer fluids

TiO2, Al2O3, Fe, and WO3 nanofluids are prepared in a two-step procedure by dispersing nanoparticles in a basefluid. Since nanoparticles form clusters in fluids, a cell disrupter generating high power pulses is used for improving the dispersion of nanoparticles. The transient hot wire method is used for the measurement of thermal conductivity. The thermal conductivities of TiO2, Al2O3, Fe, and WO3 nanofluids are studied and compared with each other. Nanofluids show a large enhancement of thermal conductivity compared with their basefluids, which exceeds the theoretical expectation of two-component mixture system. We compare thermal conductivities of various nanofluids and discuss the important factors in determining thermal conductivity in this study.