Thermal conductivity of detonation nanodiamond hydrogels and hydrosols by direct heat flux measurements

The methodology and results of thermal conductivity measurements by the heat-flow technique for the detonation nanodiamond suspension gels, sols, and powders of several brands in the range of nanoparticle concentrations of 2–100% w/w are discussed. The conditions of assessing the thermal conductivity of the fluids and gels (a FOX 50 heat-flow meter) with the reproducibility (relative standard deviation) of 1% are proposed. The maximum increase of 13% was recorded for the nanodiamond gels (140 mg mL−1 or 4% v/v) of the RDDM brand, at 0.687 ± 0.005 W m−1 K−1. The thermal conductivity of the nanodiamond powders is estimated as 0.26 ± 0.03 and 0.35 ± 0.04 W m−1 K−1 for the RUDDM and RDDM brands, respectively. The thermal conductivity for the aqueous pastes containing 26% v/v RUDDM is 0.85 ± 0.04 W m−1 K−1. The dignities, shortcomings, and limitations of this approach are discussed and compared with the determining of the thermal conductivity with photothermal-lens spectrometry.