Viscosity of Nanofluids Based on ZnO Nanoparticles

Abstract

A new set of fluid has been an area of interest for many researchers now a days called Nano-fluids. Nanofluids are dispersion of nanoparticles (viz metal, metal oxides or ceramic particles) in base fluid (viz water, ethylene glycol etc.). Initially the nanofluids attracted the researches due to its different properties as compared to base fluid. The most important was increased (in most cases) convective heat transfer that has made nanofluids very suitable as a coolant where high thermal conductivity is required. But apart from heat transfer coefficient many other rheological properties of nanofluids have brought attention. One such most important property is viscosity. In the current study viscosity of ZnO (Distilled water as base fluid) based nanofluid has been measured. The synthesis of ZnO based nanofluids was done using a two-step method. Five different nanofluids with Wt/volume % concentration of 0.05, 0.1, 0.5, 1 and 2 were prepared. The results have been compared with the Eienstein’s equation suggested by Drew and Passman for calculating viscosity of nanofluids. The results showed a variation of less than 4%.