A lot of research has been devoted to improve the thermal properties of these fluids by adding a small quantity of a highly thermal conductive solid at concentrations ranging

from 0.001 to 50 wt.% of the various nanomaterials including oxide [5], nitride [6], metal [7], diamond [8], carbon nanotube [9], carbon fiber [10], carbon black, graphene oxide [11], graphene [12], graphite flake [13], and hybrid [14] with different AZD6094 supplier shapes (particle, disk, tube, sheet, fiber, etc.) [4, 15, 16]. Nanofluids have many applications in the industries since materials of nanometer size have unique chemical and physical properties and the thermal selleckchem conductivity of nanofluids with smaller size of nanoparticles is larger than the those of bigger this website sizes at specific concentrations [17]. Recently, a significant number of studies have been conducted on the use of carbon-based nanostructures like carbon nanotubes [18], single-wall carbon nanotubes [19], multiwall carbon nanotubes [20], graphite [21], graphene oxide [22], and graphene [23] to prepare nanofluids. Recent studies reveal that graphene has a very high thermal conductivity, so it is obvious that graphene nanofluid would show a higher thermal conductivity enhancement compared to other nanoparticles. Graphene,

a single-atom-thick sheet of hexagonally arrayed sp2-bonded carbon atoms, has attracted much attention

since its discovery by Novoselov et al. [24]. Graphene nanoplatelets are two-dimensional (2D) with an average thickness of 5 to 10 nm and a specific surface area of 50 to 750 m2/g; they can be produced at different sizes, from 1 to 50 μm. These interesting nanoparticles, including find more short stacks of platelet-shaped graphene sheets, are identical to those found in the walls of carbon nanotubes but in planar form [25]. Graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) have drawn a lot of interest due to their excellent electrical conductivity and high mechanical properties; the in-plane thermal conductivity of GNPs is reported to be as high as 3,000 to 5,000 W/m∙K [26]. Further, as this is a 2D material, the heat transfer properties are expected to be much different from the zero-dimensional nanoparticles and one-dimensional carbon nanotubes. Moreover, since GNP itself is an excellent thermal conductor, graphene-based nanofluids are normally expected to display a significant thermal conductivity enhancement [27]. Graphene nanoplatelets are also offered in granular form which could be dispersed in water, organic solvents, and polymers with the right choice of dispersion aids, equipment, and techniques. In this paper, an attempt is made to prepare aqueous suspensions of stable homogeneous GNP nanofluids by high-power ultrasonication.