Synthesis and Dispersion of Copper Nanoparticles in Lubricant Oils

摘要

Noble metal nanoparticles have been recognized as useful materials like conductive ink in electronics. These nanoparticles have been developed by various physical and chemical methods during a quarter of a century. [1-5] Among those approaches to generating nanoparticles from the vapor phase, plasma process is a promising and viable way due to the unique fluid dynamic, thermodynamic and chemical features of the plasmas.[5] In particular, the cleanness, large volume and high energy density of thermal plasmas allow to introduce lots of bulk metals with cheaper prices to prepare desired types of nanoparticles.Especially, the nanofluid containing nanoparticles exhibits superior thermal properties relative to conventional heat transfer fluids and fluids containing micrometer-sized particles due to their extremely large total surface areas. Therefore, the nanofluid refers to a new kind of heat transfer fluids by suspending nanoscaled metallic or nonmetallic particles in conventional heat transfer fluids. [6, 7]In this paper, we report a novel approach to controlling the size of copper nanoparticles by arc plasma processing and to preparing the nanofluid containing the copper nanoparticles.