Preparation and application of rice husk-based SiO2/water nanofluids in heat transfer enhancement under pulsation

Abstract

Rice husk was used as raw-material to produce nano-SiO2 by the heat treatment method, and the structural characteristics of rice husk SiO2 (R-SiO2) was compared with the commercial SiO2 (C-SiO2) by various characterization methods. SiO2/water nanofluids were prepared by a two-step dispersion method using various sources SiO2 (R-SiO2 and C-SiO2) and applied in the convective heat transfer of corrugated tube channels in a self-built experimental platform. The experimental results showed that the specific surface area of the rice husk-based silica was high, reaching 335 m2/g. For the same nanofluids concentration, the thermal conductivity enhancement rate of R-SiO2/water nanofluid was higher than that of C-SiO2/water and the enhancement rate of 0.5% R-SiO2/water at 25 and 40 °C reached 14.01% and 12.16%, respectively. The convective heat transfer coefficient of R-SiO2/water was slightly better than that of commercial C-SiO2/water, which indicated that R-SiO2 has great potential to be a substitute of C-SiO2 for application in heat exchangers. The convective heat transfer characteristics of R-SiO2/water nanofluids in corrugated tube at different Re and volume concentrations were compared. It was found Nu augmented as Re increased. And a higher nanofluids concentration might result in a drastic increment in convective heat transfer coefficient. When a pulsating wave was imposed, the larger pulsation amplitude resulted in a higher heat transfer enhancement rate. And the enhancement rate at lower Re was better. Under the conditions of Re = 385, f = 0.67 and A = A15, the maximum average convective heat transfer enhancement rate reached 143%.