Dual Role of Nanoparticles in the Thermal Conductivity Enhancement of Nanoparticle Suspensions

Experimental evidence exists that the adding nanoparticles to a base fluid can have a novel effective thermal conductivity. This may be due to two different contributions of nanoparticles. The first is the combined thermophysical properties of the suspension resulting from the addition of the nanoparticles to the base fluid, and the second is the effect of the micro convection due to nanoparticles' Brownian motion. A theoretical model, combined with the original approach of Maxwell, was conducted to explain the difference between the experimental data and the original theoretical model developed by other researchers and showed excellent agreement when compared with the existing experimental data.