Impact analysis of nanoparticle motion mechanisms on the thermal conductivity of nanofluids

The relative effects of nanoparticle motion mechanisms of dilute suspensions, i.e., Brownian motion, thermo-phoresis and osmo-phoresis, including size dependence, on the thermal conductivity were theoretically investigated. The Brownian motion effect was found to be more significant by factors of O(106) and O(108) when compared to thermo-phoresis and osmo-phoresis, respectively.