Effects of surfactant and nanofluid on the performance and optimization of a microchannel heat sink

This paper reports the influence of surfactant Triton X-100 on boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) nanofluid in non-optimized and optimized microchannel heat sink (MCHS) at 30 degrees C and 50 degrees C. The MCHS performance was evaluated in terms of thermal resistance and pressure drop, utilizing experimental thermophysical properties of distilled water, a mixture of distilled water and surfactant Triton X-100 as base fluid, and nanofluid BNNTs at weight concentration of 0.001% into MCHS models which was further optimized with the Multiple Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO) technique. It is found that the surfactant at 30 degrees C improves the MCHS thermal capabilities without nanotubes by 0.8% even after optimizing the MCHS according to the fluid properties. Conversely, surfactant Triton X-100 reduces pressure drop greatly with any change in thermal resistance at 50 degrees C and paired cooperatively with BNNTs nanofluid 0.001wt.% - mitigating pressure drop increment caused by the nanofluid resulting an overall performance improvement by 1.25% and 1.97% for thermal resistance and pressure drop respectively in MCHS systems and reduced to 1.3% and 3.2% after optimization. Optimized MCHS dimensions given by MOPSO could be manufactured and additionally gave wider solutions for large reduction of pressure drop up to 80% for economic MCHS with a drawback of higher thermal resistance. (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study investigates the influence of surfactant Triton X-100 on boron nitride nanotubes nanofluid in microchannel heat sink, showing that the surfactant can improve thermal performance at 30 degrees Celsius and reduce pressure drop at 50 degrees Celsius. Optimized MCHS dimensions given by MOPSO technique result in improved overall performance for MCHS systems.