Experimental Study on A Novel Organic/Inorganic Green Deep Eutectic Solvents: Thermophysical Properties, Thermal Stability, and Utilization in Nanofluids

Abstract

Inresponse to the performance limitations of traditional heat transfer fluidsunder extreme conditions, a series of organic/inorganic deep eutectic solvents(DES), composed of ethylene glycol and different types of acetates, have beendeveloped, and their downstream thermophysical properties, as well as theirpotential applications in nanofluids, have been explored. It is found that theprepared DESs significantly broaden the liquid phase temperature range, whichranges from -14~196 ℃ to -40~201 ℃. The initial decomposition temperatureincreases from 85 ℃ to 130 ℃, and the peak decomposition rate shifts from 175℃ to 206 ℃. Subsequently, nanofluids were prepared by employing the selectedethylene glycol: potassium acetate-5:1 DES with carbon nanotube as nanofiller.The results reveal that the thermal conductivity of the nanofluid could beincreased by approximately 3% compared to the base fluid, and the specific heatcapacity was enhanced by 7.5% with a photothermal conversion efficiencyreaching up to 42.7%. These results highlight the promising thermal stabilityand heat transfer properties of ethylene glycol-acetate DESs. Moreover, thenanofluids prepared from those DESs as base fluids provide useful referencesfor the development of novel, green, and high-efficiency energy transportationfluids.

Keywords

Deepeutectic solvents / Thermophysicalproperties / Thermal stability / Nanofluid / Photothermal conversion efficiency

Acknowledgments

The authors express gratitude to the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (NO. 2023ZDPY12) and Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (No. 2023AFB428). We also gratefully acknowledge Hua Wei and Rui Zhou from the Advanced Analysis & Computation Center at CUMT for their valuable assistance with chemical analysis.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, C.L. and X.Z.; Methodology, C.L.; Software, H.G.; Validation, X.D., P.L. and J.H.; Formal Analysis, X.Z. and X.D.; Investigation, J.Z.; Resources, C.L.; Data Curation, G.L.; Writing—Original Draft Preparation, X.Z.; Writing—Review & Editing, C.L.; Visualization, X.D.; Supervision, J.Z.; Project Administration, W.H.; Funding Acquisition, C.L.

Ethics Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (NO. 2023ZDPY12) and Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (No. 2023AFB428).

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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