Many researchers have focused on the increasing of the efficiency in the industrial equipment. Plate heat exchanger (PHE) as an important thermal equipment in dairy industries is employed here as a test-rig for investigation thermal parameters. In order to enhance heat transfer capability of distilled water as a hot stream in PHE, titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2) were added to the distilled water to prepare stable nanofluid with weight concentration of 0.25%, 0.35% and 0.8% as the working media. Base on the experimental data, nanofluid at all concentrations showed higher heat transfer rate (advantage) and pressure drop (disadvantage) than that of the distilled water, resulting from higher thermal conductivity of the nanoparticle loaded in basefluid. In order to evaluate the positive and negative aspects of the nanofluid applications in the PHE simultaneously, parameter of performance index was introduced and the results confirmed the potential of this type of nanofluid in PHE, by looking at the ratio of convective heat transfer enhancement to the pressure drop.

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