Experimental investigation of pool boiling heat transfer enhancement of alumina–water–ethylene glycol nanofluids

One of the most recent techniques for improvement of boiling processes is using nanofluids. As a simple explanation, adding nanoparticles to regular fluids makes nanofluids. Present article investigates nucleate boiling heat transfer of alumina–water–ethylene glycol nanofluids under atmospheric pressure, experimentally. The experimental setup accuracy has been evaluated for deionized water and mixture of water and ethylene glycol, which shows very good agreement with available correlations in the open literature. Six different volume concentrations of the nanofluids have been used to evaluate the impact of nonoparticles on nucleate boiling heat transfer of binary mixture of water and ethylene glycol with a same volume concentration. The results show the high effectiveness of the nanoparticles on heat transfer coefficient. In addition, the experimental results indicate that there is an optimum volume concentration of nanoparticles, in which the heat transfer coefficient has its maximum value. Furthermore, the optimum volume concentration of nanoparticle and the maximum increment of boiling heat transfer coefficient in the present study are 0.75% and 64%, respectively.

► Boiling heat transfer of alumina–water–ethylene glycol nanofluids was studied.
► Nanofluids have higher heat transfer coefficients in comparison with the base fluid.
► There is an optimum concentration of nanoparticles which is 0.75% by volume.
► Maximum increase of boiling heat transfer coefficient was 64%.