Viscosity of low volume concentrations of magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles dispersed in ethylene glycol and water mixture

This Letter reveals an experimental investigation of rheological properties of Fe3O4 nanoparticles dispersed in 60:40%, 40:60% and 20:80% (by weight) ethylene glycol and water mixture. Magnetic nanoparticles were synthesized by chemical coprecipitation method. The experiments were carried out in the particle volume concentration range from 0.0% to 1.0% and temperature range from 0 °C to 50 °C. Viscosity of nanofluid increases with increase of volume concentration and decreases with increase of temperature. The results indicate that the 60:40% EG/W based nanofluid is 2.94 times more viscous compared to the other base fluids. Einstein model was under predicting the experimental viscosity for all the base fluids.