Analysis of heat, mass transfer, and microorganism density rates in bioconvection nanofluid flow under the influence of thermal radiation using response surface methodology

Abstract

This article presents innovative studies on bioconvection caused by microorganisms in a nanofluid flow with nonlinear radiation effects over a vertical plate. The set of governing partial differential equations is transformed by the similarity transformation into a set of nonlinearly coupled ordinary differential equations (ODEs). These are then solved numerically using the fourth-order Runge–Kutta method. The current findings are in remarkable agreement with the previous studies found in the literature. It is noted that the impact of bioconvection Lewis number and Peclet number on the microbe density rate profile gets reduced, and the increasing effect of the nonlinear thermal radiation parameter on the temperature profile is observed, which maintains the heat transmission distances inside the boundary layer. Additionally, the interactions of heat, mass transfer, and microbe density rates with the selected input parameters are discussed using the response surface methodology (RSM). This model is more applicable in a variety of fields, including synthetic biology, biofuel cells, and drug delivery devices.

Keywords:

• Bioconvection
• convective boundary condition
• nanofluid
• response surface methodology
• thermal radiation

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions.

Disclosure statement

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