Experimental investigation of the latent heat of vaporization in aqueous nanofluids

This paper reports an experimental investigation of the latent heat of vaporization (hfg) in nanofluids. Two different types of nanoparticles, graphite and silver, suspended in deionized water were exposed to a continuous laser beam (130 mW, 532 nm) to generate boiling. The latent heat of vaporization in the nanofluids was determined by the measured vapor mass generation and the heat input. To ensure that the measured hfg values are independent of heating method, the experiments were repeated with an electrically heated hot wire as a primary heat input. These experiments show considerable variation in the hfg of nanofluids. That is, graphite nanofluid exhibits an increased hfg and silver nanofluid shows a decrease in hfg compared to the value for pure water. As such, these results indicate that relatively low mass fractions of nanoparticles can apparently create large changes in hfg.