Novel Cu-MXene hybrid nanofluids for the experimental investigation of thermal performance in double pipe heat exchanger.

This work aims at analyzing the performance of a double-pipe heat exchanger (DPHE) using low concentrated (0.02-0.06 vol%) water, methanol, castor oil and silicon oil based Cu-MXene hybrid nanofluids. Convective heat transfer experiments were successfully performed in fabricated modular double pipe heat exchanger without using any twisted tapes, surfaces and effectively measured various heat transfer parameters such as Nusselt number (Nu), heat transfer coefficient (h), rate of heat transfer (Q), overall heat transfer coefficient (U), friction factor (f), pressure drop (∆P), and the thermal performance factor (TPF). The results indicated a considerable improvement in Nu, h, and U with some penalty in ∆P. Moreover, the TPF value of methanol and water-based hybrid nanofluids exceeded unity and showed superior heat transfer characteristics, confirming the viability of improving thermal performance in DPHE. Eventually, the LMTD and U of hybrid nanofluids were positively validated using Aspen HYSYS 12.1 version software to verify the experimental results and showed a variation of less than ± 5.35% for U and LMTD. These results successfully demonstrate the possible usage of proposed Cu-MXene hybrid nanofluids in thermal management systems, automotive cooling, and industrial cooling respectively. In addition, these findings also encourage its use in superior performance and cost-effective thermal management technologies.