Nanofluid application for flat plate collector

Dr. Mukesh Kumar Sahu
Associate Professor
Faculty of Technology
mukeshkumar.sahu@kalingauniversity.ac.in

The effective use of various forms of non-conventional renewable energy sources in order to reduce the energy demands, which are increasing continusally. It has been necessary to use various energy and thermal energy conversion systems with an objective to obtain maximum efficiencies from it.
For this, nanofluids have capability to improve the performance of thermal systems which have used for the heat transfer applications. In nanofluids and nanotechnology it provides the energy utilization in thermal systems without any harmful environmental impact. Nanofluid is a colloidal mixture of nano-sized particles in a host (base) fluid to affect the thermophysical properties and improve the heat transfer characteristics of base fluids, which are useful for different practical applications. Nanofluids are now used frequently as coolants, lubricants, hydraulic fluids and as the metal cutting fluids. There are many research works that concentrate on nanofluids containing different nanoparticles with various volume concentrations and sizes.
Various base fluids such as ethylene glycol, form amide, water etc., have been used by the researchers. The enhancement in thermal properties is achieved by mixing nano-sized particles which dispersed uniformly in the base fluids [5]. Nanoparticles have a larger relative surface area since particle size is very less, it has higher suspension stability that improves the thermal conductivity of the mixture.
Nanofluids is a colloidal suspension of nanoparticles of size 1 to 100 nm (10-9 m) in the base fluid this is the term first given by Choi in the year 1995. Depending on the application, nanofluids have been made of various materials such as metals, metal oxides, ceramics and carbon nanotubes (CNT).