A review of the effect of nanofluids to reduce water loss and improve thermal properties in cooling towers

Document Type : Review Article

Authors

Department of Renewable Energies and Environment, Faculty of New Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

In most of the factories, one of the most important and practical devices is the type of cooling towers which are used to release extra heat from processes in various industries to the environment. This study is an overview of novel ways on the effect of different type’s nanofluids on the thermal performance and reduce the amount of flowing water down the cooling tower. Nanofluids can improve thermo physical properties such as heat capacity& thermal conductivity coefficient and increase density & viscosity in comparison to base fluid. The dispersion of the nanoparticle increases the surface tension of the nanofluid and increases the resistance to water evaporation.So in this paper study influence of ZnO/water, nonporous graphene, AL2O3/ water, TiO2/water, CuO/water with the different concentration in order to improve cooling tower performance.
It was found that by using nanofluids, cooling range, cooling tower characteristic (TC), volumetric heat transfer coefficient and efficiency are enhanced in comparison to water. For example, TC enhanced by 21.5% and 22.5% for ZnO/water nanofluid with concentration of 0.02 wt% and 0.05 wt%, respectively. In continue, results of sensitivity analyses that has been carried out in investigations, are discussed.

Keywords

References

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Iranian journal of Ecohydrology
Volume 5, Issue 3
October 2018
Pages 1007-1015

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History

  • Receive Date: 21 December 2017
  • Revise Date: 24 June 2018
  • Accept Date: 24 June 2018

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