5. Works on optical properties of nanofluids
In recent studies, there are noticeable amount of works devoted to investigating the optical characteristics of nanofluids. It is widely known that the optical properties change drastically even with small amount of nanoparticles added into base fluid. Taylor et al. [49] used experimental measurement and modeling (Maxwell Garnett) approach to investigate nanofluid׳s optical properties. Extinction coefficient of base fluid and nanoparticle were added together to produce nanofluid׳s extinction coefficient. Results from both experimental and modeling were compared. From this study, the results from modeling works well with water based nanofluids added with graphite nanoparticles compared to samples added with metallic nanoparticles or oil base fluids. They also concluded that nanofluids could be used to absorb sunlight without noticeable increase in viscosity.
Meng at al. [53] dispersed carbon nanotube treated by HNO3 into glycol suspension. The effect of nanoparticles mass fraction on photo-thermal properties was investigated as well as the thermal conductivity and rheological characteristics. For the photo-thermal measurement, the CNTs glycol nanofluids were filled in quartz tubes. These tubes were placed into an insulation box where the front side of the insulation box was cut open and faced to a 250 W high pressure mercury lamp. This lamp was used to simulate sunlight. Temperature of the nanofluid samples was raised gradually when the samples were exposed to the light. The study revealed that strong absorption characteristic is recorded at wavelength range from 200–2500 nm. 18% augmentation in terms of photo-thermal conversion efficiency is detected for 0.5% mass fraction of this nanofluid compared to that of base fluid.
Lee et al. [10] reiterated that incident solar energy can be completely absorbed in the penetration depth of 10 cm using water added with 0.0005 vol% of MWCNT. Extinction coefficient of the sample is found to be proportional with the volume concentration of MWCNT ranging from 0.0005 to 0.005 vol%. The experiment setup for this study is illustrated in Fig. 5. It uses the concept of Lambert–Beer law to obtain the extinction coefficient.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5.
Extinction coefficient measurement system based on Lambert Beer Law [10].
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Experimental data were then compared against Maxwell–Garnett model and Rayleigh scattering approximation. Findings showed that the Maxwell–Garnett model is not suitable to predict extinction coefficient precisely whereas Rayleigh scattering can qualitatively predict this property.
Sajid et al. [14] revealed that the optical properties of nanofluid changes with time as well as the growth of nanoparticles. The authors used Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) to monitor the development of nanoparticles׳ cluster and their size. In addition, zetasizer was used to obtain the size of aggregates as well as zeta potential. Finally, UV–vis spectroscopy was used to measure the optical properties of water based Al2O3 nanofluids. This study implied that extinction coefficients of nanofluid decrease significantly with time within visible to near IR region. Furthermore, they found that Quasi Crystalline and Rayleigh approaches are inadequate to estimate the optical properties in ultraviolet region.
Said et al. [54] concluded TiO2 based nanofluids has promising optical properties compared to that of Al2O3 based nanofluid although they are less stable. There are good opportunity for TiO2 based nanofluids to perform as a good solar irradiation absorber if this problem is addressed accordingly. Both experiment and analytical measurements (based on Rayleigh, Maxwell–Garnett and Lambert–Beer׳s approaches) were applied in this study. The samples were prepared at two volume percentages namely 0.1 and 0.3%.
A study by Zhang et al. [55] showed that optical absorption property of ionic liquid [HMIM][MTF2] is noticeably augmented by adding very small particle׳s volume fraction. In this experiment, the nanofluids were prepared via two-step method while no surfactant was added. Double beam UV–vis–NIR spectrophotometer was used to measure the optical properties while wavelength ranging from 200 to 2500 nm was selected. Their study indicated the extinction coefficient of Ni based nanofluid is higher than nanofluids containing Cu nanoparticles at the similar size (40 nm) and volume fraction (10 ppm) due to their different complex refractive indexes. The experiment extinction coefficient was also determined based on Lambert Beer law. In addition, lower transmittance and higher extinction coefficient is observed for carbon-coated Ni (Ni/C) based nanofluids compared to that of Ni based nanofluids with the same particle׳s average size. The study also implies that radiative properties of Ni/C are proportional to particle׳s volume fraction. Finally, authors concluded that ionic based nanofluids seem suitable to be used as absorber in solar