Review on combined heat and mass transfer characteristics in nanofluids

•Combined heat and mass transfer enhancement in nanofluids is firstly reviewed.•Main researches on mass transfer in nanofluids are gas absorption and liquid mass diffusion.•Desorption in nanofluids should be more extensively carried out.•Five main future research directions in nanofluids are proposed.

Nanofluids produced by dispersing nanoparticles in the basefluid have been paid wide attention due to the reported superior thermophysical properties which probably lead to a strongly promising potential in application. Therefore, numerous studies have been carried out experimentally and theoretically to investigate the heat and mass transfer performance by using nanofluids in a number of fields in recent years. Some groups have reviewed the experimental results, mechanisms and models on the heat transfer enhancement of nanofluids, and most of them are concentrated on thermal conductivity. However, no comprehensive review article focuses on the mass transfer performance affected by the suspended nanoparticles in nanofluids. Thus in this study, a brief review of heat transfer characteristics in nanofluids has been performed at first, then we firstly take a critical review of the previous literature on mass transfer enhancement in nanofluids. Finally, this paper suggests that future research on combined heat and mass transfer in nanofluids needs to focus on five main directions.