Small particles, big impacts: A review of the diverse applications of nanofluids

Nanofluids—a simple product of the emerging world of nanotechnology—are suspensions of nanoparticles (nominally 1–100 nm in size) in conventional base fluids such as water, oils, or glycols. Nanofluids have seen enormous growth in popularity since they were proposed by Choi in 1995. In the year 2011 alone, there were nearly 700 research articles where the term nanofluid was used in the title, showing rapid growth from 2006 (175) and 2001 (10). The first decade of nanofluid research was primarily focused on measuring and modeling fundamental thermophysical properties of nanofluids (thermal conductivity, density, viscosity, heat transfer coefficient). Recent research, however, explores the performance of…

• NS
  National Science Foundation
• UD
  U.S. Department of Defense
• UO
  University of New South Wales
• NS
  Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
• DO
  Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems