Numerical simulation for bio-convective flow of Sutterby nanofluid by a rotating disk

Abstract

Abstract Nanofluids play a vital role in the improvement of our practical life. The potential usage of nanomaterials in different applications such as oil recovery, refrigeration systems, a freeze of electrical components in computers, development of liquid displays, cooling spirals, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, heat storage devices and biotechnology. Swimming microorganisms have a crucial role in various areas of life, such as medicines, bioengineering, biofuels and food processing. Microorganisms are used as antibiotics in medicine and help to create a vaccine. Keeping in mind these applications, the current research provides a mathematical model for bioconvection Sutterby nanofluid flowing past the rotating stretching disk with magnetic field, motile microorganisms, chemical reactions and heat generation. The Brownian movement and thermophoresis diffusions are also considered. The governing equation structures are simplified by suitable transformations. A popular bvp4c solver in MATLAB computational software is employed to achieve numerical results for the non-linear model. The flow evaluation for the effects of several prominent numbers on temperature, velocities, concentration and motile microorganism profiles is executed graphically and numerically. The volumetric concentration of nanomaterial rises for thermophoresis number while shows opposite nature for Prandtl and Lewis parameters. The boosting values of bioconvection Lewis number, Peclet number and bioconvection Rayleigh number decay the motile microorganisms’ concentration.