Enhancing Heat Transfer In Solar Collector Using Nanofluid (SiO2) - A Review

Thermal properties of liquids play an important role in heating as well as cooling applications in industrial processes. Conventional heat transfer fluids have relatively poor thermal conductivity which leads to poor heat transfer. The low thermal conductivity of conventional heat transfer fluid has been a serious impediment for improving the performance and compactness of engineering equipments. Recent studies made in the field of nano science suggest that nanofluids have great potential to increase the thermal conductivity. Every physical mechanism has a critical scale below which their properties changes totally. Modern technology offers various techniques to prepare nanoparticles engineered on atomic or molecular scale. In this case the nanoparticle dispersed in the fluid is silicon dioxide the reason for choosing which is that it has excellent thermal conductivity and its low cost. The property of the nanofluid can be altered by changing the volume, concentration and size of the nanoparticles dispersed in it. This study deals with the analysis of silica nanofluid in thermal conductivity.