Experimental study on the density, surface tension and electrical properties of ZrO₂–EG nanofluids

ABSTRACT

The article focuses on the physical properties of nanofluids based on ethylene glycol (EG) with dispersed zirconium dioxide (ZrO₂) nanoparticles. For this purpose, the two-step method was applied to prepare samples with five different nanoadditive volume fractions (0.002, 0.004, 0.006, 0.0081, 0.0102). No surfactants were used in the sample preparation process. All materials are commercially available and were used without any modification. To determine the physical properties of ZrO₂-EG nanofluids, various techniques were used. Oscillating U-tube method, Du Noüy ring method Ohm law, and dielectric spectroscopy were applied to obtain the mass density, surface tension, electrical conductivity and permittivity, respectively. All measurements were performed at a constant temperature of 298.15 K. The effect of nanoparticles volume fraction on the physical properties of the prepared nanofluids was determined. The mass density, surface tension, electrical conductivity and permittivity increase with the increasing content of ZrO₂ in ethylene glycol.

KEYWORDS:

• Nanofluids
• zirconium dioxide
• density
• surface tension
• electrical conductivity
• permittivity

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the “Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad” (Spain) and FEDER program through the ENE2017-86425-C2-1-R project. Grant PID2020-112846RB-C21 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. Grant PDC2021-121225-C21 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR”. J.P.V. thanks the Defense University Center at the Spanish Naval Academy (CUD-ENM) for all the support provided for this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness [ENE2017-86425-C2-1-R].