Proceedings of the ASME 2009 7th International Conference on Nanochannels, Microchannels and Minichannels
ICNMM2009
June 22-24, 2009, Pohang, South Korea
KEYNOTE PAPER
THE THERMAL TRANSPORT PROPERTIES OF ETHYLENE GLYCOL BASED MGO
NANOFLUIDS
Wei Yu, Hua-Qing Xie﹡, Yang Li and Li-Fei Chen
/ School of Urban Development and Environmental Engineering, Shanghai Second Polytechnic University,
Shanghai 201 209, China /hqxie@eed.sspu.cn
ABSTRACT
Ethylene glycol based nanofluids containing MgO
nanoparticles (MgO-EG) were prepared, and the transport
properties including thermal conductivity and viscosity were
measured. The results show that the thermal conductivity of
MgO-EG nanofluid depends strongly on particle concentration,
and it increases nonlinearly with the volume fraction of
nanoparticles. The thermal conductivity of MgO-EG nanofluids
is larger than that of nanofluids containing the same volume
fraction of TiO2, ZnO, Al2O3 and SiO2, maybe due to its
lowest viscosity among the tested metallic oxide nanofluids.
Thermal conductivity enhancement of MgO-EG nanofluids
appears weak dependence on temperature from 10 to 60℃, and
the enhanced ratios are almost constant. Viscosity
measurements show that MgO-EG nanofluids demonstrate
Newtonian behavior, and the viscosity significantly decreases
with temperature. The thermal conductivity and viscosity
increments of nanofluids are higher than those of the existing
classical models for the solid-liquid mixture.
INTRODUCTION
Heating or cooling fluids are important to many industrial
sectors, including transportation, energy supply and electronics.
The thermal conductivity of these fluids plays a vital role in the
development of energy-efficient heat transfer equipment [1].
However, conventional heat transfer fluids have poor heat
transfer properties compared to most solids. Nanofluids,
produced by dispersing nanoparticles into conventional heat
transfer fluids, are proposed as the next generation heat transfer
fluids due to the reports of great enhancement of heat transfer
[2-4], mass transfer [5] and wetting and spreading [6] than
those of the base liquids. These enhanced properties have
attracted great interest from many researchers because of the
potential applications including thermal management, thermal
therapy, microfluidics and novel detergent formulation [7-8].
To now, more than twenty laboratories worldwide have
published experimental data on the thermal conductivity of
nanofluids, and the results show that nanofluids exhibit
substantially higher thermal properties particularly thermal
Downloaded From: http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 04/03/2014 Terms of Use: http://asme.org/terms
ICNMM2009-82032
conductivity even when the concentration of suspended
nanoparticles is less than 5% in volume fraction. Many kinds of
nanomaterials are used as the additives of nanofluids, such as
some metallic nanoparticles [9-10], metallic oxide particles
[11], carbon nanotubes [12-13] and TiO2 nanotubes [6]. At
present the thermal conductivity data measured by different
groups are scattered. The dispersion is believed to be due to
various factors such as the measuring techniques, the particle
size and shape, the particle clustering and sedimentation. Many
papers neglect some important factors including the measured
temperature, and the settlement time after nanofluid
preparation. Although the significant dependence of nanofluid
thermal conductivity on temperature has clearly been shown,
the amount of data remains very limited [14-15]. The
settlement time is another vital factor. The measured data
demonstrate that the apparent thermal conductivity is highest
right after nanofluid preparation and decreases considerably
with elapsed time, showing a time-dependent characteristic.
However, most of the papers have not stated the settlement time
clearly [16]. The viscosity of nanofluids is another important
transport property for applications of nanofluids as a new class
of heat transfer fluids in thermal devices or systems such as
heat exchangers or cooling systems. Experimental data for the
viscosity of nanofluids are rare compared with their thermal
conductivity [17-18].
To the best of our knowledge, the thermal transport
properties of MgO nanofluids have not well been investigated.
In this paper, the effects of the particle volume fraction,
settlement time, measured temperature and viscosity on the
thermal transport are investigated. Furthermore, the thermal
conductivities of different metallic oxide nanofluids are
measured using the same measurement techniques and
measurement conditions in order to ensure the consistency of
experimental data.
EXPERIMENTAL SECTION
The nanoparticles used in the experiments were pursued
from Hangzhou WanJing New Material Company, and the
mean diameters of the nanoparticles were about 20 nm. The
1 Copyright © 2009 by ASME
 density and crystal style are shown in Table 1, and some data of loading (0.5-1%), the thermal conductivity enhancement versus
Table 1 are from the reference [19]. The typical procedure is as volume fraction is larger than that at higher volume fraction
follows: The fixed quality of MgO (or other metallic oxide) (2.0-5.0%). This demonstrates that the enhanced rate of thermal
nanoparticles with different volume concentrations (φ: 0.5~ conductivity decrease with the increase of volume fraction,
5%) was dispersed in ethylene glycol. Sample preparation was mainly due to the particle agglomeration at higher volume
carried out by using a sensitive mass balance with an accuracy fraction. The conclusion is similar to nanofluids of CuO-EG
of 0.1 mg. The volume fraction of the powder was calculated [21-22].
from the weight of dry powder using the density provided by
supplier and the total volume of suspension. The nanofluid
40
mixture was stirred and ultrasonic sonicated continuously for 3 Experimental Values
h. This ensured uniform dispersion of nanoparticles in the base H-C or Maxwell Model
Bruggeman Model
fluid. 30

-kf) / kf (%)
The transient hot-wire is more appropriate than the steady-
state technique due to numerous advantages such as the
20
elimination of natural convection effects and faster

nf
experimental response. A transient short hot-wire (SHW)

(k
technique was applied to measure the thermal conductivities of 10
the nanofluids from 10 to 60℃ [20]. In addition to hot-wire
system, a temperature-controlled bath was used to maintain
0
different temperatures of nanofluids during the measurement 0 1 2 3 4 5
process. The experimental apparatus was calibrated by Volume fraction (vol.%)
measuring the thermal conductivity of ethylene glycol, and the
accuracy of these measurements was estimated to be within Fig. 1 Comparison between experimental and predicted thermal
±1%. The thermal conductivity of the fluid was measured after conductivity of MgO-EG nanofluids
the nanofluid was settled for more than 30 minutes to ensure 44
the temperature equilibrium of nanofluids. The rheological
property of nanofluids was measured by a viscometer (LV DV-
Ⅱ+ Brookfield programmable viscometer, America) with a 42
temperature-controlled bath. Viscosity measurements were
- kf) / kf (%)

started at 60℃, and temperature was gradually reduced to 10℃

40
in 10℃ increments. Spindle SC-18 was used in this viscometer
and was calibrated by using Brookfield viscosity standard
eff
(k

fluids. All the viscosity measurements were recorded at steady

38
state conditions, and the time of nanofluids sample in the
sample chamber was 10 minutes.
36
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 0 5 10 15 20 25
Settlement time (h)

Table 1. Comparison between MgO-EG and other metallic Fig. 2. The influence of settlement time on the enhancement
oxide nanofluids. ratios of thermal conductivity
Thermal Density Crystal Viscosity (Cp) Enhancement of
conductivity (g/cm3) style with 5.0 vol. nanofluids with
5.0 vol. % 48
% 30℃
W/(m·K)
MgO 48.4 2.9 Cubic 17.4 40.6% 45
- kf) / kf (%)

TiO2 8.4 4.1 Anatase 31.2 27.2%

42
ZnO 13 5.6 Wurtzite 129.2 26.8%
Al2O3 36 3.6 γ 28.2 28.2% 39
nf
(k

SiO2 10.4 2.6 noncrysta 31.5 25.3%

lline 36

33
MgO-EG nanofluids with different volume fractions (0.5-
5.0%) at 30℃ were tested to measure the thermal conductivity
30
(shown in Fig. 1). The experimental results indicate that the 10 20 30 40 50 60
thermal conductivity of MgO-EG nanofluids increases with Temperature (OC)

particle volume fraction. The maximum enhancement is 40.6%

for a particle volume fraction of 5%. It is apparent that the Fig. 3. Thermal conductivity enhancement of MgO nanofluids
thermal conductivity of the nanofluid increases nonlinearly with 5.0 vol.% as a function of temperature
with the volume fraction of nanoparticles. At lower volumetric

2 Copyright © 2009 by ASME

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 25 keff k p + 2k f − 2φ (k f − k p )
Experimental data = (1)
Fit linear kf k p + 2k f + φ ( k f − k p )
20
For solid-liquid mixtures in which the ratio of conductivity of
Shear Stress ( Dyne / cm )
2

two phases is larger than 100, Hamilton and Crosser (H-C)

15
developed the following model [24]:
keff k p + (n − 1)k f − ( n − 1)φ ( k f − k p )
10 = (2)
kf k p + (n − 1)k f + φ (k f − k p )
5 For spherical particles, the H-C model is the same as the
Maxwell model. Bruggeman model can be applied to calculate
the thermal conductivity of aggregates, which can be regarded
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 as concentrated liquid-solid mixtures [1]:
1 k
Shear rate (RPM) keff = ⎡⎣ (3φ − 1) k p + (2 − 3φ )k f ⎤⎦ + f Δ
4 4 (3)
Fig. 4 Shear stress versus shear rate for 5.0 vol.% MgO at 30℃
kp kp
Δ = (3φ − 1) 2 ( ) 2 + (2 − 3φ ) 2 + 2(2 + 9φ − 9φ 2 )( )
kf kf
In order to compare the heat transfer ability of MgO-EG
nanofluids with other metallic oxide nanofluids, the thermal
conductivities of different metallic oxide nanofluids were
35
measured using the same measuring techniques and measuring
conditions, and the results are presented in Table 1. It can be 30
Einstein model
Brinkman model

Relative viscosity enhancement (%)

seen that the thermal conductivities of MgO-EG nanofluids are Batchelor model
larger than those of nanofluids containing the same volume 25 Experimental data
fraction of TiO2, ZnO, Al2O3 and SiO2. In our opinion, the
enhancement of thermal conductivity of nanofluids is not only 20

related to the thermal conductivity of the additive nanoparticles,

15
but also related to the viscosity of nanofluids. The viscosity of
MgO-EG nanofluid is lowest among the tested metallic oxide
10
nanofluids. The viscosity of nanofluid not only depends on the
particle volume fraction, but also depends on the interface 5
property of nanoparticles and the interaction between
nanoparticles and base fluid. There is no doubt that the great 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06
enhancement of viscosity will increase the thermal resistance Particle volume fraction
and weaken the thermal conductivity. This will offset the
benefit from enhanced thermal conductivity. Fig. 6. Relative viscosity enhancement of nanofluids with
60 particle volume fraction

50 The measured and predicted thermal conductivity of

nanofluids are shown in Fig. 1. The measured thermal
Viscosity (cP)

40 conductivity displays an apparently higher value than the

5.0vol.% MgO-EG
4.0vol.% MgO-EG existing models. Jang and Choi suggested that the variation
30
3.0vol.% MgO-EG between the measured and predicted results stemmed from the
2.0vol.% MgO-EG
1.0vol.% MgO-EG fundamental limits of conventional models [25]. These
Pure EG
traditional models do not take particle size, particle Brownian
20
motion, nanolayering, and effect of nanoparticle clustering into
account.
10
Fig. 2 shows the enhanced ratio of thermal conductivity as a
function of the settlement time. It is found that the conductivity
0
10 20 30 40 50 60
decreases with elapsed time in 6 h, and the decreased value is
O
within 3%. When the settlement time is over 6 h, it will reach a
Temperature ( C)
constant value of about 39%. The tendency of the settlement
Fig. 5. The viscosity of MgO nanofluids as a function of
time dependence of thermal conductivity enhancements has
temperature
also been observed in water based Cu nanofluids and Fe
nanofluids [26-27]. Previous literatures proposed that the
Various mechanisms and models have been proposed for
decrease was probably due to the appreciable particle
explaining the enhanced thermal conductivity of nanofluids
agglomeration. When nanoparticles get agglomerated, the ratio
using various assumptions. Maxwell model is known as
of the effective area to the volume decreases. The effective
following equation [23]:
area reduction of the thermal interaction of particles causes a
decrease in the thermal conductivity of the fluid. Kim et al [2]

3 Copyright © 2009 by ASME

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 found that the thermal conductivity decreased rapidly for
nanofluids without surfactants after preparation. But no obvious
changes in the thermal conductivity of the nanofluids with
sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as surfactant were observed even
after 5 h settlement. It is clear that the thermal conductivity
reflects stability of nanofluid to some extent. For the MgO-EG
nanofluids, the decrease of enhancement of thermal
conductivity with 24 h is within 5%, indicating the stability of
the nanofluids.
Although some groups have reported studies of the thermal
conductivity enhancement at elevated temperatures, there are
relative fewer effective data to reach a unanimous conclusion
about the influence of temperature on thermal conductivity. In
this paper, the effect of temperature on the enhancement of
effective thermal conductivity of nanofluids was investigated
by measuring the thermal conductivity of nanofluids for
different temperatures with 5.0 vol.% ranging from 10-60℃,
shown in Fig. 3. The result shows that the absolute thermal
conductivities increase with the increasing temperature, while
the enhanced ratios are almost constant, and the thermal
conductivities of the nanofluids track the thermal conductivities
of the base liquid, which is similar to the conclusion of
Timofeeva et al [14], while several groups have reported the
contrary conclusions [18]. The discrepancy demonstrates that
many factors affect the measured thermal conductivity. For the
influence of temperature on thermal conductivity, there is no
doubt that the increase of temperature of nanofluids improves
the Brownian motion velocity of nanoparticles in base fluid,
which contributes to the enhancement of thermal conductivity.
While the decrease of viscosity will lead to form larger
agglomerates, which will not only reduces the Brownian
motion velocity, but also reduces the ratio of the effective area
to the volume.
Viscosity is related to molecular momentum transport, and
determining the viscosity of the nanofluid is necessary to
calculate the pumping power. There are some debates about
whether the nanofluids are Newtonian or Non-Newtonian fluids
[28]. The analysis of Kabelac [28] shows that the viscosities of
Al2O3 nanoparticle suspensions decrease with the shear rates.
On the contrary, Prasher’s results demonstrate that the
viscosities of nanofluids of Al2O3-propylene glycol are
independent of shear rates, indicating that nanofluids are
Newtonian fluids in nature [29]. In order to investigate the
rheological behaviour, whether MgO-EG nanofluid is
Newtonian or Non-Newtonian fluid should be verified firstly.
The equation governing Newtonian behavior of a fluid is given
by
τ = μγ (3)
where τ is the shear stress, μ is the coefficient of viscosity, and
γ is the shear strain rate. The shear stress versus shear rate for 5
vol.% MgO nanofluid at 30℃ is shown in Fig. 4. The linear
relation between shear stress and shear rate shows that MgO-
EG nanofluids demonstrate Newtonian behavior.
Fig. 5 shows the viscosity of nanofluids with different
concentrations as a function of temperature. With the increase
of temperature, the viscosity of nanofluids decreases rapidly.
The reason of viscosity’s decrease with the increase in
temperature is the weakening effect on the inner-particle/inter-
molecular forces [17]. The viscosities of nanofluids
considerably increase with increasing particle volume fraction.
The effect due to the particle fraction is linked to the fact that
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increasing concentration would have a directly influence on
internal viscous shear stresses [17].
In general, the viscosities of nanofluids are abnormally
increased. Higher concentrations of nanofluids possess higher
viscosity. Fig. 6 illustrates the relationship between relative
viscosity enhancement and volume fraction. When the particle
volume fraction of MgO-EG is 0.01, 0.03 and 0.05, the relative
viscosity enhancement is 3.5, 15.1 and 29.2%, respectively.
There is a nonlinear relationship between the relative viscosity
enhancement and particle volume fraction. This maybe due to
the clusters of nanoparticles when the concentration is higher.
There exist some theoretical formulas that can be used to
estimate particle suspension viscosities. Almost all such
formulas have been derived from the pioneering work of
Einstein (1906) which is based on the assumption of a linearly
viscous fluid containing dilute, suspended, spherical particles.
His formula is as follows:
μnf
μr = = 1 + 2.5ϕ (4)
μbf
where φ and μ are particle volume fraction and fluid dynamic
viscosity, respectively; the subscripts bf, nf and r refer
respectively to the base-fluid, the nanofluid and to the
‘nanofluid to base fluid’ ratio of viscosity. The famous formula
was found valid for a very low particle volume fraction
(φ<0.02). Since the publication of Einstein’s work, there are
some theoretical works to provide some corrections to his
formula. Brinkman (1952) extended the Einstein’s formula to a
moderate particle volume concentration (φ<0.04), he proposed:
μ nf 1
= (5)
μbf (1 − ϕ ) 2.5
Batchelor (1977) considered the effect due to the Brownian
motion of particles for an isotropic suspension of rigid and
spherical particles, and proposed:
μ nf
= 1 + 2.5ϕ + 6.5ϕ 2 (6)
μbf
From Fig.6, it can be seen that the measured viscosities of
nanofluids are underpredicted by three models. This is probably
because these models only take particle volume fraction into
account, whereas the nanoparticles in fluids can easily form
clusters. Besides the particle volume fraction, the nature of the
particle surface, ionic strength of the base fluid, inter-particle
potentials such as repulsive (electric double layer force) and
attractive (van der Waals force) forces may play significant role
to alter the viscosity of nanofluids.[18]. Such enhancement of
viscosity may diminish the potential benefits of nanofluids.
Therefore, it is imperative to conduct more comprehensive
studies on the viscosity of nanofluids.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The work was supported by the National High Technology
Research and Development Program of China
(2006AA05Z232), Shanghai Educational Development
Foundation and Shanghai Municipal Education Commission
(08CG64) and the Program for Professor of Special
Appointment (Eastern Scholar) at Shanghai Institutions of
4 Copyright © 2009 by ASME
 Proceedings of the ASME 2009 7th International Conference on Nanochannels, Microchannels and Minichannels
June 22-24, 2009, Pohang, South Korea
KEYNOTE PAPER
THE THERMAL TRANSPORT PROPERTIES OF ETHYLENE GLYCOL BASED MGO
NANOFLUIDS
Wei Yu, Hua-Qing Xie﹡, Yang Li and Li-Fei Chen
/ School of Urban Development and Environmental Engineering, Shanghai Second Polytechnic University,
Shanghai 201 209, China /hqxie@eed.sspu.cn
ABSTRACT
Ethylene glycol based nanofluids containing MgO
nanoparticles (MgO-EG) were prepared, and the transport
properties including thermal conductivity and viscosity were
measured. The results show that the thermal conductivity of
MgO-EG nanofluid depends strongly on particle concentration,
and it increases nonlinearly with the volume fraction of
nanoparticles. The thermal conductivity of MgO-EG nanofluids
is larger than that of nanofluids containing the same volume
fraction of TiO2, ZnO, Al2O3 and SiO2, maybe due to its
lowest viscosity among the tested metallic oxide nanofluids.
Thermal conductivity enhancement of MgO-EG nanofluids
appears weak dependence on temperature from 10 to 60℃, and
the enhanced ratios are almost constant. Viscosity
measurements show that MgO-EG nanofluids demonstrate
Newtonian behavior, and the viscosity significantly decreases
with temperature. The thermal conductivity and viscosity
increments of nanofluids are higher than those of the existing
classical models for the solid-liquid mixture.
INTRODUCTION
Heating or cooling fluids are important to many industrial
sectors, including transportation, energy supply and electronics.
The thermal conductivity of these fluids plays a vital role in the
development of energy-efficient heat transfer equipment [1].
However, conventional heat transfer fluids have poor heat
transfer properties compared to most solids. Nanofluids,
produced by dispersing nanoparticles into conventional heat
transfer fluids, are proposed as the next generation heat transfer
fluids due to the reports of great enhancement of heat transfer
[2-4], mass transfer [5] and wetting and spreading [6] than
those of the base liquids. These enhanced properties have
attracted great interest from many researchers because of the
potential applications including thermal management, thermal
therapy, microfluidics and novel detergent formulation [7-8].
To now, more than twenty laboratories worldwide have
published experimental data on the thermal conductivity of
nanofluids, and the results show that nanofluids exhibit
substantially higher thermal properties particularly thermal
Downloaded From: http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 04/03/2014 Terms of Use: http://asme.org/terms
ICNMM2009
ICNMM2009-82032
conductivity even when the concentration of suspended
nanoparticles is less than 5% in volume fraction. Many kinds of
nanomaterials are used as the additives of nanofluids, such as
some metallic nanoparticles [9-10], metallic oxide particles
[11], carbon nanotubes [12-13] and TiO2 nanotubes [6]. At
present the thermal conductivity data measured by different
groups are scattered. The dispersion is believed to be due to
various factors such as the measuring techniques, the particle
size and shape, the particle clustering and sedimentation. Many
papers neglect some important factors including the measured
temperature, and the settlement time after nanofluid
preparation. Although the significant dependence of nanofluid
thermal conductivity on temperature has clearly been shown,
the amount of data remains very limited [14-15]. The
settlement time is another vital factor. The measured data
demonstrate that the apparent thermal conductivity is highest
right after nanofluid preparation and decreases considerably
with elapsed time, showing a time-dependent characteristic.
However, most of the papers have not stated the settlement time
clearly [16]. The viscosity of nanofluids is another important
transport property for applications of nanofluids as a new class
of heat transfer fluids in thermal devices or systems such as
heat exchangers or cooling systems. Experimental data for the
viscosity of nanofluids are rare compared with their thermal
conductivity [17-18].
To the best of our knowledge, the thermal transport
properties of MgO nanofluids have not well been investigated.
In this paper, the effects of the particle volume fraction,
settlement time, measured temperature and viscosity on the
thermal transport are investigated. Furthermore, the thermal
conductivities of different metallic oxide nanofluids are
measured using the same measurement techniques and
measurement conditions in order to ensure the consistency of
experimental data.
EXPERIMENTAL SECTION
The nanoparticles used in the experiments were pursued
from Hangzhou WanJing New Material Company, and the
mean diameters of the nanoparticles were about 20 nm. The
1 Copyright © 2009 by ASME