Preparation and characterization of copper oxide nanofluid for heat transfer applications

Copper oxide nanofluid has been prepared by single-step wet chemical precipitation method. The preparation of nanofluid is carried out by reducing copper chloride with sodium hydroxide as reducing agent in deionised water as base fluid by means of conventional heating. The characterization of sample nano powder is done by X-ray diffraction (XRD), EDXA, SEM, and TGA. The mean size of the particle was determined from the XRD pattern by using the Scherrer formula and the average particle size was found to be 20 nm. Also an increase in thermal conductivity of the prepared copper oxide nanofluid was found to be 12.4 % compared to deionised water.