Synthesis of Electrospun Titania Nanofibers for Thermal Lens Study in Heat Transport Applications

Abstract

Thermal lens spectrometry (TLS) technique was used to obtain the thermal diffusivity of electrospun Titania nanofibers (TiO2), with average diameter size of 50-80 nm, in water. TiO2nanofibers have been successfully prepared by sol-gel and electrospining techniques. TLS provides reliable alternative to measure the thermal diffusivities of semitransparent materials and low thermal diffusivities. The results show that the nanofluid thermal diffusivity increases with the presence of nanofibers. Complementary techniques: scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) were employed to characterize the nanofibers morphology, average fiber diameter and chemical composition, respectively.