Faculty of Engineering Nanotechnology Engineering Nanotechnology Engineering Fourth Year Design Project Interim Report Nanofluid-based Microfluidic Heat Exchanger for CPU Cooling

Abstract

This proposal is for the development of a microfluidic heat exchanger (MHE) using a nanofluid as the heat dissipation medium. This device has direct applications in cooling the CPU component of both laptop and desktop PCs. The finalized device will consist of an array of microfluidic channels with widths on the order of 200um. The channels will be milled from a piece of copper using very fine milling tools. An aqueous, functionalized carbon nanotube (CNT) solution will flow through the microfluidic channels in order to act as the heat exchange medium. A colloidal CNT solution was chosen due to its significantly enhanced thermal conductivity compared to traditional heat exchanger fluids. The CNT solution, driven by a micropump, will cycle throughout the channels and out to a radiator in order to dissipate the heat into the environment. The device dimensions allow for a small vertical profile that can be incorporated into a computer by mounting it directly onto the CPU. It is expected that this design will match and potentially exceed the performance of current heat sink technologies.