Gating heat transport by manipulating convection in a magnetic nanofluid

Gating thermal transport is a key requirement in smart heat exchangers used in a variety of applications such as electronics and energy generation. Here, we demonstrate a high on-off ratio thermal valve using magnetic nanofluids actuated by a non-uniform magnetic field. Using nanofluids comprised of magnetic nanoparticles in paraffin oil, we obtain on-off ratios as high as 16, which is more than 5-fold higher than that seen in comparable nanofluids with uniform magnetic fields. Analysis of these results using heat transfer modeling shows that the remarkable enhancement arises from magneto-thermally activated convection due to field gradients. Such convective thermal gating could be promising for applications.