Materials and Mechanical Engineers: Thermal conductivity of SiO2 nanoparticles is about 1.4 W/mK at 25C. Can you help me obtain thermal conductivity values by 60 C?
To estimate the thermal conductivity as function of the temperature for SiO2 nanoparticles we may accept that k = kº·(1 + α·ΔT), where ΔT = T-Tº, being Tº the selected reference temperature for which the thermal conductivity is known (kº), while α is the temperature coefficient for the thermal conductivity having reciprocal temperature units (1/K for the SI system). This coefficient, which is defined as α = (dk/dT)/k, can, in principle, be reasonably well estimated for the SiO2 nanoparticles from the thermal conductivity data which is available for a series of different temperatures for either 'fused silica' or 'vitreous silica' SiO2, where last data may approach better the case of amorphous nanoparticles. Such data can be obtained (e.g.) from: David R. Lide (Ed.), "CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics", 85th ed., CRC Press, Boca Raton (FL, USA), 2004; cf. pp. 12-197 and 12-200.