A study on specific heat of nanoparticle enhanced fluids

Abstract

A real necessity in the field of materials engineering and beyond is the development of new smart materials that effectively combine state-of-the-art technology with competitive costs to meet current technical requirements and challenges. In our days, fluids used in engineering occupy a significant place, and for their application in the industry, special thermophysical, thermal and chemical properties are required. Nanofluids are new fluids that contains nanometric particles, called nanoparticles. Traditional fluids used for nanofluids are water, oil and ethylene glycol, and nanoparticles are typically made of metal oxides, carbides or carbon nanotubes. Ionanofluids, on the other hand, are new heat transfer fluids based on ionic liquids, with superior thermal properties compared to the conventional fluid. Ionanofluids are recently developed by adding nanomaterial particles to an already novel fluid, as the ionic liquid. From the available literature, it is easy to understand that a new heat transfer fluid should have good thermal and flow properties and the iononofluids thermophysical properties can be improved by juggling with the amount and type of nanoparticles added in the ionic liquid. The goal of ionanofluids development is to obtain the highest possible thermal properties at the lowest possible concentrations, thus this paper aims to experimentally study the specific heat of these new nanoparticle enhanced fluids.