Thermal Conductivity Enhancement of Ethylene Glycol-Based Suspensions in the Presence of Silver Nanoparticles of Various Shapes

In this technical brief, the effect of adding silver (Ag) nanoparticles of various shapes on the thermal conductivity enhancement of ethylene glycol (EG)-based suspensions was investigated experimentally. These included Ag nanospheres (Ag NSs), Ag nanowires (Ag NWs), and Ag nanoflakes (Ag NFs). Measurements of the thermal conductivity of the suspensions were performed from 10 to 30 °C at an increment of 5 °C. It was shown that the thermal conductivity of the EG-based suspensions increases with raising the temperature. The Ag NWs of a high aspect ratio (∼500) caused greatest relative enhancement up to 15.6% at the highest loading of nearly 0.1 vol. %, whereas the other two shapes of nanoparticles, Ag NSs and Ag NFs with much smaller aspect ratios, only led to enhancements up to 5%. The formation of a network of Ag NWs that facilitates heat conduction was likely responsible for their better performance. The relative enhancement was also predicted by the Hamilton-Crosser model that takes the particle shape effect into consideration. It was shown that the predictions far underestimate the thermal conductivity enhancements but are qualitatively consistent with their shape dependence. As a penalty, however, the presence of Ag NWs was shown to give rise to significant increase in the viscosity of the EG-based suspensions.