Investigation of thermal conductivity of a new hybrid nanofluids based on mesoporous silica modified with copper nanoparticles: Synthesis, characterization and experimental study

Nowadays, scientists concentrated on improving the thermal conductivity of coolant fluids, using suspensions of nanometer-sized solid particle materials in base fluids. In the current work, the hybrid nanofluids have been prepared by dispersing synthesized nanocomposite material, based on mesoporous silica, modified by copper nanoparticles (Cu/SBA-15) in water. Also, various instrumental analysis, such as SEM, XRD, XPS, TEM, EDX and FT-IR, have been applied on the structural evaluation of the prepared nanocomposite. The primary purpose of this study is to measure the thermal conductivity of new water-based Cu/SBA-15 hybrid nanofluids for 0.019% to 0.075% weight fraction concentration, and at temperatures of 25-50 degrees C. The results the results of the study indicated that the thermal conductivity ratio of hybrid nanofluids was enhanced by increasing concentration and temperature of nanocomposite. It impose the impression that these hybrid nanofluids can be a great choice fluid in the thermal engineering systems. Finally, based on the experimental data, a new empirical formula has been developed for calculating the thermal conductivity ratio of hybrid nanofluids, with a coefficient of determination (R-2) of 0.989 and absolute average deviation of 0.42%. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.