Heat transfer enhancement of plate heat exchanger utilizing kaolin-including working fluid

Abstract

Plate heat exchangers having high efficiency and small size are one of the mostly used heat exchangers. They are used in many applications ranging from cooling to heating. Heat transfer improvement of plate heat exchangers can be performed using nanoparticle-including working fluids, i.e. nanofluids. Influences of kaolin-including nanofluid utilization as working fluid on heat transfer performance of the plate heat exchanger were experimentally investigated in this study. The prepared nanofluid included 2% (wt/wt) nanoparticle content and Triton X-100 surfactant was added to the prepared mixture at the rate of 0.2% of a final concentration to increase the solubility of nanoparticles. The experiments were performed in various working conditions with changes in mass flow rate and temperature. The obtained results showed that nanofluid usage as the working fluid enhanced the heat transfer rate in plate heat exchanger in comparison to the results acquired from the tests conducted by deionized water. The improvement rate in mean heat transfer coefficient was achieved as 9.3% when kaolin–deionized water nanofluid was used as the working fluid in plate heat exchanger.