Stability And Thermal Characteristics Of Carbon Nanofiber (CNF) Water-Based Nanofluids

Nor Salihah, Zaini (2015) Stability And Thermal Characteristics Of Carbon Nanofiber (CNF) Water-Based Nanofluids. Project Report. UTeM, Melaka, Malaysia. (Submitted)

Text Stability And Thermal Characteristics Of Carbon Nanofiber (CNF) Water-Based Nanofluids 24 Pages.pdf Download (511kB)

Abstract

Carbon nanofiber (CNF) is one of the nanoparticles which have a superior thermal conductivity. However, the major problem when using CNFs is their stability and dispersion in nanofluids system. Agglomeration can lead to inaccurate and non-reproducible data. Hence, this experiment was conducted to study the stability, dispersion and thermal characteristics of Carbon Nanofiber (CNF) water-based nanofluids thus, identifying the most stable CNF water-based nanofluid formulation with enhanced performance. The experiment is conducted by setting the variable of weight percentage of CNF from 0.1 wt% to 1.0 wt% and the dispersing agent used is Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP). After conducting the stability test, then the experiment were proceed for the thermal properties test which includes thermal conductivity test, viscosity test and heat transfer test. The thermal properties test was conducted at 6 °C, 25 °C and 40 °C because those temperatures are the temperature applied in the chiller. From the results obtained, the optimum percentage for the formulation of the stable CNF water-based nanofluid was from 0.1 wt% of CNF with the 50% dispersing agent of CNF. The preliminary resulted shows that, the presence of dispersing agent completely stabilize the CNT water-based nanofluid. For thermal conductivity test, the results show an increment as the weight percentage of CNF increase and the trend is roughly similar with the heat transfer results. Apart of that, the viscosity test also recorded an increment in its value as the weight percentage values were added. The increment of thermal properties does give the pleasant effect on the nanofluid heat transfer application but the increment in viscosity will cause the flow resistance during the heat transfer process. Therefore, the most suitable ratio selected for this experiment is 0.7 wt% of CNF due to its enhanced performance in thermal properties and relatively low viscosity.

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