Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2021) 136: 752
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-01711-6

Regular Article

Colloidal Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles-based oil blend ferro-nanofluid for heat transfer application

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, Jazan University, P.O. Box. 706, 45142, Jazan, Saudi Arabia
² Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80204, 21589, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
³ Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, Jazan University, P.O. Box. 706, 45142, Jazan, Saudi Arabia
⁴ Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Jazan University, P.O. Box. 706, 45142, Jazan, Saudi Arabia
⁵ Colloids and Polymers Research Group, School of Chemical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, 632014, Vellore, Tamilnadu, India
⁶ Interdisciplinary Research Center for Renewable Energy and Power Systems, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, 31261, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
⁷ Department of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, Najran University, P.O. Box 1988, 11001, Najran, Saudi Arabia
⁸ State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, 310027, Hangzhou, China

^f chandan1816@gmail.com
^k afzalkhan@zju.edu.cn

Received: 1 February 2021
Accepted: 1 July 2021
Published online: 15 July 2021

Abstract

The thermal conductivity enhancement of oil blend-based ferro-nanofluids for heat transfer application is rarely reported. Herein, highly stable ferro-nanofluids were prepared by dispersing oleic acid coated Fe₃O₄ NPs into the blend of sunflower oil and mineral oil at varying volume ratios. The maximum thermal conductivity enhancement of ~ 91% was obtained for M10 (base fluid) oil blend-based ferro-nanofluid at 0.6 vol% of Fe₃O₄ NPs as compared to the pure mineral oil. The dispersed NPs into the oil blend-based ferro-nanofluid executed Brownian motion which led to the collisions between the NPs as well as with the molecules of the oil blend. The formation of a chain like network by small-sized NPs effectively led to a larger volume fraction of NPs, which caused the enhancement of the thermal conductivity of oil blend-based ferro-nanofluids. Moreover, a nano-adsorption layer of oil blend was formed on the surfaces of NPs, which served as a bridge for the heat exchange between NPs and oil blend. The experimental results were validated against a similar pre-existing thermal conductivity enhancement model. Hence, this study provides a more efficient method to prepare oil-based ferro-nanofluids with a tunable thermal conductivity for heat transfer applications.