Non-equilibrium thermodynamic analysis of double diffusive, nanofluid forced convection in microreactors with radiation effects

This paper presents a theoretical investigation of the second law performance of double diffusive forced convection in microreactors with the inclusion of nanofluid and radiation effects. The investigated microreactors consist of a single microchannel, fully filled by a porous medium. The transport of heat and mass are analysed by including the thick walls and a first order, catalytic chemical reaction on the internal surfaces of the microchannel. Two sets of thermal boundary conditions are considered on the external surfaces of the microchannel; (1) constant temperature and (2) constant heat flux boundary condition on the lower wall and convective boundary condition on the upper wall. The local thermal non-equilibrium approach is taken to thermally analyse the porous section of the system. The mass dispersion equation is coupled with the transport of heat in the nanofluid flow through consideration of Soret effect. The problem is analytically solved and illustrations of the temperature fields, Nusselt number, total entropy generation rate and performance evaluation criterion (PEC) are provided. It is shown that the radiation effect tends to modify the thermal behaviour within the porous section of the system. The radiation parameter also reduces the overall temperature of the system. It is further demonstrated that, expectedly, the nanoparticles reduce the temperature of the system and increase the Nusselt number. The total entropy generation rate and consequently PEC shows a strong relation with radiation parameter and volumetric concentration of nanoparticles

Heat Transport Through Plasmonic Interactions in Closely Spaced Metallic Nanoparticles Chains

We report a numerical investigation on the heat transfer through one dimensional arrays of metallic nanoparticles closely spaced in a host material. Our simulations show that the multipolar interactions play a crucial role in the heat transport via collective plasmons. Calculations of the plasmonic thermal conductance and of the thermal conductivity in ballistic and diffusive regime, respectively have been carried out. (a) Using the Landauer-Buttiker formalism we have found that, when the host material dielectric constant takes positive values, the multipolar interactions drastically enhance by several order of magnitude the ballistic thermal conductance of collective plasmons compared with that of a classical dipolar chain. On the contrary, when the host material dielectric constant takes negative values, we have demonstrated the existence of non-ballistic multipolar modes which annihilate the heat transfer through the chains. (b) Using the kinetic theory we have also examined the thermal behavior of chains in the diffusion approximation. We have shown that the plasmonic thermal conductivity of metallic nanoparticle chains can reach 1% of the bulk metal thermal conductivity . This result could explain the anomalously high thermal conductivity observed in many collo\"idal suspensions, the so called nanofluids.Comment: 10 pages, PR

Cooling Dynamics of a Gold Nanoparticle in a Host Medium Under Ultrafast Laser Pulse Excitation: A Ballistic-Diffusive Approach

We present a numerical model allowing to determine the electron and lattice temperature dynamics in a gold nanoparticle under subpicosecond pulsed excitation, as well as that of the surrounding medium. For this, we have used the electron-phonon coupling equation in the particle with a source term linked with the laser pulse, and the ballistic-diffusive equations for heat conduction in the host medium. Our results show that the heat transfer rate from the particle to the matrix is significantly smaller than the prediction of Fourier's law. Consequently, the particle temperature rise is much larger and its cooling dynamics is much slower than that obtained using Fourier's law, which is attributed to the nonlocal and nonequilibrium heat conduction in the vicinity of the nanoparticle. These results are expected to be of great importance for interpreting pump-probe experiments performed on single nanoparticles or nanocomposite media

Growth of Nanosize and Colloid Particles by Controlled Addition of Singlets

We outline a theoretical framework for estimating the evolution of the particle size distribution in colloid and nanoparticle synthesis, when the primary growth mode is by externally controlled addition of singlet building blocks. The master equations, analyzed in the leading "non-diffusive" expansion approximation, are reduced to a set of easily numerically programmable relations that yield information on the time evolution of the particle size distribution.Comment: 9 pages in PD

Natural convection from a pair of differentially-heated horizontal cylinders aligned side by side in a nanofluid-filled square enclosure

A two-phase model based on the double-diffusive approach is used to perform a numerical study on natural convection from a pair of differentially-heated horizontal cylinders set side by side in a nanofluid-filled adiabatic square enclosure. The study is conducted under the assumption that Brownian diffusion and thermophoresis are the only slip mechanisms by which the solid phase can develop a significant relative velocity with respect to the liquid phase. The system of the governing equations of continuity, momentum and energy for the nanofluid, and continuity for the nanoparticles, is solved by the way of a computational code which incorporates three empirical correlations for the evaluation of the effective thermal conductivity, the effective dynamic viscosity, and the thermophoretic diffusion coefficient, all based on a wide number of literature experimental data. The pressure-velocity coupling is handled through the SIMPLE-C algorithm. Simulations are executed for three different nanofluids, using the diameter and the average volume fraction of the suspended nanoparticles, as well as the cavity width, the inter-cylinder spacing, the average temperature of the nanofluid, and the temperature difference imposed between the cylinders, as controlling parameters, whose effects are thoroughly analyzed and discussed. It is found that the impact of the nanoparticle dispersion into the base liquid increases remarkably with increasing the average temperature, whereas it increases just moderately as the nanoparticle size decreases, as well as the imposed temperature difference and the cavity width increase. Conversely, the distance between the cylinders seems to have marginal effects. Moreover, an optimal particle loading for maximum heat transfer is detected for most configurations investigated

The g-factors of discrete levels in nanoparticles

Spin-orbit scattering suppresses Zeeman splitting of individual energy levels in small metal particles. This suppression becomes significant when the spin-orbit scattering rate \tau_{so}^{-1} is comparable with the quantum level spacing \delta. The g-factor exhibits mesoscopic fluctuations; at small \delta\tau_{so} it is distributed according to the Maxwell distribution. At \delta\tau_{so}\to 0 the average g-factor levels off at a small value g\sim(l/L)^{1/2} given by the ratio of the electron mean free path l to the particle size L. On the contrary, in 2D quantum dots the g-factor is strongly enhanced by spin-orbit coupling.Comment: 4 page

Interactions in Chaotic Nanoparticles: Fluctuations in Coulomb Blockade Peak Spacings

We use random matrix models to investigate the ground state energy of electrons confined to a nanoparticle. Our expression for the energy includes the charging effect, the single-particle energies, and the residual screened interactions treated in Hartree-Fock. This model is applicable to chaotic quantum dots or nanoparticles--in these systems the single-particle statistics follows random matrix theory at energy scales less than the Thouless energy. We find the distribution of Coulomb blockade peak spacings first for a large dot in which the residual interactions can be taken constant: the spacing fluctuations are of order the mean level separation Delta. Corrections to this limit are studied using the small parameter 1/(kf L): both the residual interactions and the effect of the changing confinement on the single-particle levels produce fluctuations of order Delta/sqrt(kf L). The distributions we find are significantly more like the experimental results than the simple constant interaction model.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.