Agro-Based Nano Coolant for Car Engines: Synthesis and Evaluation

Coolants play essential roles in automobile engines as they serve the dual purpose of cooling and lubrication. The choice of coolants in engines is therefore very essential as they could influence the life of the engine. The widely acceptable coolants for automobile engines are basically ethylene glycol and water. However, with recent advancement in technology as well as a call for a reduction in pollution, there has been a consideration for better coolants and as such a development of an agro-based nano coolant for automobile engine became necessary. In this study, a nano coolant was developed using nanoparticles from Rice Husk Ash (RHA) which was sonicated at different concentrations of between 0.001 g/L – 0.0035 g/L volume fractions and dissolved in distilled water. Nanoparticle size was characterized using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) analysis and thermo physical properties of the nanofluid were determined. The performance of the developed nanofluid was evaluated using the pour point, flash point and viscosity tests of the nanofluids applied on a developed cooling rig. The “Water + Ethylene Glycol + Nanofluid (0.001% Concentration)” mixture performed best, having the highest heat transfer rates at as well as the highest viscosity value of 65.0 ± 1.20 at 100 ℃, pour point value of −22°C and flash point value of 92.90 ℃, which surpasses the corresponding values of the control samples. .