Thermal properties of nanofluids: Controversy in the making?

Science of the very small has become big. It raises issues that are interesting and important to scientific understanding and seems to possess clues to the solution of knotty technological problems. The focus of the present news item concerns thermal properties of suspensions of nanoparticles in fluids, commonly referred to as nanofluids. Investigations of their thermal properties have thrown up many findings that are interesting and challenging to explain. The importance of thermal properties is in the context of heat removal from small spaces. It is a technological challenge arising from the need to cool high-speed microelectronic devices