1 PLEASE CITE: International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 53, Issues 23-24, November 2009, Pages 5339–5347; DOI:10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2009.06.040 (Published version: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0017931009004153) POOL BOILING OF NANOFLUIDS: COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF EXISTING DATA AND LIMITED NEW DATA Robert A. Taylor, Patrick E. Phelan 1 Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department and the National Center of Excellence on SMART Innovations, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287-6106 Abstract Nanofluid pool boiling experimental studies have shown mixed results. Recent literature is reviewed and compared here. It is demonstrated here that experiments can be fit to the traditional Rohsenow correlation by changing the surface constant, C sf . Therefore, this study suggests surface conditions are responsible for varying results. Some limited new experimental data are reported for Al 2 O 3 /H 2 O nanofluids using the hot wire method. Relative to the baseline of pure water, boiling incipience occurs 2-3 o C earlier, heat transfer is enhanced 25-40%, but subcooled boiling deteriorates. These results are essentially in agreement with most earlier studies showing enhancement [22, 36, 37, 38]. Keywords: Nanofluids, Nanoparticle, Deposition, Boiling, Incipience, Pool, Subcooled, Critical Heat Flux, Experimental, Hot Wire 1. INTRODUCTION In the past two decades an increasing amount of research has been conducted in nanoscale science. One promising subset of this field involves adding nanoparticles to a conventional base liquid. The term nanofluid was proposed in 1995 by Choi [1] to describe this combination. Since then, the main thrust of nanofluid research has been to develop better heat transfer fluids. The promise of nanofluids stems from the fact that at relatively small particle loading, typically <1% by volume, significant enhancement in thermal transport may be possible. 1 Corresponding author: phelan@asu.edu, (480)965-1625