Heat capacity and viscosity of ternary carbonate nanofluids

Abstract

SummaryRecent studies have shown that eutectic salt mixtures show remarkable enhancement in heat capacity after nanoparticles are dispersed at small concentrations. The exact mechanism behind these heat capacity enhancements is still inconclusive. However, recent studies proposed that the enhancement could be associated with nucleation and grain growth of salt dendritic structures. To investigate the hypothesis, we synthesized several samples of ternary carbonate salt mixture doped with 1% alumina nanoparticles and thermally cycled them at various heating rates and cooled them back to the solid‐state during the synthesis procedure. It can affect the nucleation/grain growth of salt dendritic nanostructures and, as a result, there can be different heat capacity enhancements. A differential scanning calorimetry was employed to characterize the heat capacity values of the systems. It was observed that the heat capacity enhancements decreased with increases in the heating rates. The highest heat capacity enhancement was observed at the lowest heating rate (ie, 2°C/min). A transmission electron microscope was employed to confirm the effect of heating cycling rates on the formation of dendritic structures. Moreover, pH variation method was used to study the effect of the dendritic structures on the heat capacity of the mixture. Furthermore, a rheometer was employed to characterize the rheological behavior. It was observed that nanofluid samples showed shear‐thinning behavior, whereas shear thinning was not observed in pure and nanofluid prepared with the pH variation method.