Synthesis of highly stable γ-Fe2O3 ferrofluid dispersed in liquid paraffin, motor oil and sunflower oil for heat transfer applications

Mohd Imran; Aabid Hussain Shaik; Akhalakur Rahman Ansari; Abdul Aziz; Shahir Hussain; Ahmed Farag Fadil Abouatiaa; Afzal Khan; Mohammed Rehaan Chandan

doi:10.1039/c7ra13467c

Synthesis of highly stable γ-Fe₂O₃ ferrofluid dispersed in liquid paraffin, motor oil and sunflower oil for heat transfer applications

RSC Adv. 2018 Apr 16;8(25):13970-13975. doi: 10.1039/c7ra13467c. eCollection 2018 Apr 11.

Authors

Mohd Imran¹, Aabid Hussain Shaik², Akhalakur Rahman Ansari³, Abdul Aziz⁴, Shahir Hussain⁵, Ahmed Farag Fadil Abouatiaa¹, Afzal Khan⁶, Mohammed Rehaan Chandan²

Affiliations

¹ Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Jazan University P. O. Box. 706 Jazan 45142 Saudi Arabia.
² Chemical Engineering Department, School of Civil and Chemical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology Vellore TN 632014 India chandan1816@gmail.com.
³ Centre of Nanotechnology, King Abdulaziz University Jeddah 21589 Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Jazan University P. O. Box. 706 Jazan 45142 Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Electrical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Jazan University P. O. Box. 706 Jazan 45142 Saudi Arabia.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, School of Material Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University Hangzhou 310027 China.

Abstract

This article aims at the synthesis of highly stable γ-Fe₂O₃ magnetic nanoparticles and their ferrofluids using different base liquids such as liquid paraffin, motor oil and sunflower oil for heat transfer applications. Phase and morphology of the synthesized nanoparticles were probed using XRD, SEM and FTIR spectroscopy. The average nanoparticle size of γ-Fe₂O₃ magnetic nanoparticles was found to be 13 nm. Stability of the ferrofluids was monitored by visually observing the aggregation nature of the nanoparticles for 180 days. The ferrofluid prepared using motor oil as a base fluid exhibited high stability (for more than 1 year) and a mean enhancement of 77% in thermal conductivity at 1.5 vol% nanoparticles was observed as compared to base fluid. The viscosity of the ferrofluids was also measured and found to be 18, 38 and 8 cP at 27 °C for the liquid paraffin based, motor oil based and sunflower oil based ferrofluid, respectively.