Evaporation rate of colloidal droplets of jet fuel and carbon-based nanoparticles: effect of thermal conductivity

Adding nanoparticles to liquid fuel is known to promote its combustion characteristics through improving several thermo-physical properties. This study investigates the effects of adding carbon nanoparticles on thermal conductivity and evaporation rate of liquid jet fuel. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes, activated carbon nanoparticles, and graphene nanoplatelets were added to jet fuel at different concentrations to prepare colloidal suspensions. Thermal conductivity is determined by passing known amounts of heat through a very thin layer of fuel and measuring temperature difference across its thickness. A fiber-supported droplet technique is also used to evaluate evaporation rate due to force convection of a hot inert gas. It is observed that both thermal conductivity and evaporation rate increase as a result of nanoparticle addition. Since there is no radiation heat transfer mechanism, the increase in evaporation rate is concluded to be only due to enhanced thermal conductivity.