Laser fabrication of Cu nanoparticles based nanofluid with enhanced thermal conductivity: Experimental and molecular dynamics studies

Nanofluids are engineered colloidal suspensions of solid nanoparticles in aqueous and non-aqueous base fluids with enhanced thermo-physical characteristics compared to conventional heat transfer (HTFs). In this study, we report on the fabrication copper nanoparticles-ethylene glycol (CuNPs-EG) nanofluid by using a simple one-step pulsed Nd:YAG laser ablation method ablate surface pure target EG fluid under ambient conditions. Structural morphological analysis confirmed spherical shaped CuNPs average diameter ~7 nm. Thermal conductivity (k) investigations CuNPs-EG were conducted computational approach where Equilibrium Molecular Dynamics (EMD) simulations integrated Green-Kubo (EMD-GK) was used. The obtained EMD-GK results for k experimentally through guarded hot-plate technique within temperature ranges 298–318 K. Interestingly, relative enhancement (η) percentage thermal nanofluids after an time ta = 5 min 15% at 318 K, while sample 30 showed ~24% conductivity. These suitability based fabricate highly efficient which could be used as alternatives HTFs various applications.