Measurement of the Thermal Conductivity of a Water-Based Single-Wall Carbon Nanotube Colloidal Suspension with a Modified 3-ω Method

A modified 3-omega method applied to a suspended platinum microwire was employed to measure the thermal conductivity and convective heat transfer coefficient of water-based single-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT) solution, and an expression for calculating the convective heat transfer coefficient in a free convective fluid was introduced. The measurement technique was validated for three model systems including vacuum, air, and deionized water. It is found that there is excellent agreement of these three model systems with theoretical predictions. In addition, the frequency dependence on the third harmonic response measured in deionized water reveals existence of a very low working frequency below 60 mHz. The thermal conductivity and convective heat transfer coefficient of a nanofluid (water-based single wall CNTs colloidal suspension) were determined to be 0.73 +/- 0.013 W/m.K and 14900 +/- 260 W/m(2).K respectively, which corresponds to enhancement of 19.4% in thermal conductivity and 18.9% in convective heat transfer as compared to water.