Conceptual Analysis Framework Development to Understand Barriers of Nanofluid Commercialization

Despite massive efforts in the field of nanofluids over the last two decades, nanofluids are primarily still used in a lab scale due to numerous controllable and uncontrollable barriers that impede their effective large-scale implementation. Nanofluids market uptake can be realized only when those barriers have been overcome. These barriers must be examined for their impacts on all aspects of nanofluids market adoption. In this study, barriers to the commercial applications of nanofluids in thermal energy technologies are identified in the literature and are assessed in consultation with experts in the field using a total interpretive structural modeling approach and cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to a classification analysis. It is discovered that most of the barriers are interrelated and can influence one another. Long-term stability issue is identified as the main driver in the effective implementation of nanofluids at commercial scale. Research in this direction might be able to help R&D institutions and researchers in this field to sort out the most influential barriers to nanofluids market uptake.