It is shown that a "nanofluid" consisting of copper nanometer-sized particl
es dispersed in ethylene glycol has a much higher effective thermal conduct
ivity than either pure ethylene glycol or ethylene glycol containing the sa
me volume fraction of dispersed oxide nanoparticles. The effective thermal
conductivity of ethylene glycol is shown to be increased by up to 40% for a
nanofluid consisting of ethylene glycol containing approximately 0.3 vol %
Cu nanoparticles of mean diameter < 10 nm. The results are anomalous based
on previous theoretical calculations that had predicted a strong effect of
particle shape on effective nanofluid thermal conductivity, but no effect
of either particle size or particle thermal conductivity. (C) 2001 American
Institute of Physics.