Chapters authored
Thermophysical Properties and SANS Studies of Nanoemulsion Heat Transfer Fluids
Cooling is one of the most important technique challenges faced by a range of diverse industries and military needs. There is an urgent need for innovative heat transfer fluids with improved thermal properties over currently available ones. This chapter discusses the development and characterization of nanoemulsion heat transfer fluids with phase changeable nanodroplets to increase the thermophysical properties and the heat transfer rate of the fluid. Nanoemulsion heat transfer fluids can be formed by dispersing one fluid into another immiscible fluid as nanosized structures such as droplets and tubes, in which those nanostructures are swollen reverse micelles with the dispersed phase and stabilized by the surfactant molecules. In addition to the enhancement of thermophysical properties such as thermal conductivity by mixing another liquid of higher thermal conductivity, an even larger amount of heat can be absorbed or released when these nanodroplets undergo phase transition from liquid to gas or vice versa, and thus enhancing the heat transfer rate. Three types of nanoemulsion heat transfer fluids are introduced: alcohol-in-polyalphaolefin, water-in-FC-72, and water-in-polyalphaolefin. Structural and property characterizations of these nanoemulsion heat-transfer fluids are the two main aspects of this chapter. This chapter also identifies several critical issues in the nanoemulsion heat transfer fluids to be solved in the future.
Part of the book: Neutron Scattering