Modelling of nanoparticles for enhancing heat recovery from nuclear reactors
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Huddersfield
Department Name: Research and Enterprise
Abstract
Nanoparticles have demonstrated their capabilities for the enhancement of heat transfer for nuclear reactors but yet the mechanisms by which they achieve this and how their stability can be maintained under extreme conditions remain unclear. This PhD project aims to explore these issues with two main objectives: to use the kinetic theory of aggregation to model the aggregation state of nanoparticles and how this state will affect the critical heat flux; and to develop a measure for the control and prediction of the stability of nanoparticles in high temperature critical heat flux occurring conditions.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Lande Liu (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Jason Bolton (Student) |
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EP/N50967X/1 | 01/10/2016 | 30/09/2021 | |||
| 1969634 | Studentship | EP/N50967X/1 | 01/10/2017 | 31/03/2021 | Jason Bolton |
| Description | Before a model for nanofluid heat transfer enhancement can be determined it was necessary to find out how to produce stable nanofluids. To do this a production procedure was created to test and monitor the stability of a nanofluid under varying conditions such as having pH control, without pH control and with/without sonication (using a sonicating bath). Although some results did not turn out as expected, stable nanofluids were created nearly 12 months ago and are still stable to the current day meaning that the procedure is quite robust and can produce very stable nanofluids. In the literature several factors have been stated to affect the stability of a nanofluid whereas during the production of these nanofluid samples, the possibility of one further variable has come to light. Beyond this, a novel experiment has been designed and produced to test the critical heat flux (maximum heat transfer) that the nanofluid can produce. It is a continuous looped system where the nanofluid is passed through a heat exchanger and heated until it boils, along this boiling tube there are several temperature and pressure probes to continually monitor and track these variables. This will then allow the critical heat flux to be calculated and a model produced in the future to predict this enhancement. |
| Exploitation Route | With the hypothesis of a new variable affecting the stability of a nanofluid, more in-depth experiments could be designed to test this hypothesis. Once a new model has been produced to predict the critical heat flux of a nanofluid, it would be possible for companies to predict whether the nanofluid they are using will give them a sufficient increase in heat transfer for the price, allowing a good cost-benefit analysis of the use of nanofluids. Also, with a robust dilution procedure that has been proven to provide long-term stability being constructed, it will allow others to follow a certain standard when producing nanofluids, creating more consistent results between experiments as the batches of nanofluids produced will be of similar quality. |
| Sectors | Chemicals,Energy |
| Title | Dilution Experiment Data - Stability Testing |
| Description | This dataset is a collection of particle size distribution measurements and zeta potential measurements of all of the nanofluid samples ranging from 1 vol% - 25 vol% when creating a dilution procedure. The equipment used was a Malvern Zetasizer-nano. It contains several thousand entries for both the size distribution and zeta potential which have been used to determine the factors that affect the stability of a nanofluid, the experiment collecting this data was designed to test various dilution methods to see which would create the most stable nanofluids over a long-term period (approx. 12 months). |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Although the data mostly agreed with the literature on the factors that affect stability, it was found that there may be one other variable that affects the stability of a nanofluid. It is believed that this can be a large driving factor affecting the average particle size within the nanofluid as a strong correlation between the volume concentration and average particle size was found when diluting a highly concentrated nanofluid to a lower concentration. |