I current fabricating a THW Cell in order to experimentally find the thermal conductivity of certain nanofluids.
I need the adhesive epoxy to suspend the platinum hot wire as well as other copper connecting wire in Plexiglas (PMMA) tubes in addition to other Plexiglas related connections.
I will highly appreciate any response ASAP.
Thank You
Iýaaz,
By 'great' do you mean adhesives that are poor thermal and electrical conductors?
If so, the average epoxy resin (bisphenol and epichlorohydrin) are essentially insulators - their resistivities will be of the order of 10^10 ohm.m. However, they are moderate conductors of heat.
So, I would suggest calibrating the thermometer with a number of known fluids to establish how much heat you are losing through the epoxy resin mounting.
Thanks for your response James.
Yes I need the epoxy adhesive to be electrically insulative as well as thermally insulative. Meaning I need the adhesive to be an extremely poor means of conducting heat and electricity.
Iýaaz,
Then I would recommend that you find a source of 'ballotini'.
These are very very small spherical (hollow) glass spheres. They are a few tens of micron in size
http://en.hollowlite.com/products_list/pmcId=25.html
... and when added to an epoxy they act as 'filler' - reducing the bulk density, and lowering the thermal conductivity.
The expoxy is an excellent electrical insulator already, and so that's not a concern. But if you make a mix that is 50:50 ballotini and epoxy, then the material will have half o fthe thermal conductivity of bulk epoxy. The more you add, the greater the reduction.
But, of course, you need a certain fraction of epoxy to keep the mechanical strength.
Good luck!
James,
That sounds really interesting, I will definitely look into "ballotini'.
Thanks again, I appreciate your advice!
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