# From Experiments to AI: A Comparative Review of Machine Learning Approaches for Predicting Nanofluid Thermophysical Properties

**Authors:** Salim Al. Jadidi, Rekha Moolya, Rajendra Padidhapu, Sivasubramanian Subramanian, Shivananda Moolya

PMC · DOI: 10.3390/nano16040272 · Nanomaterials · 2026-02-20

## TL;DR

This paper reviews machine learning methods for predicting nanofluid properties, showing they perform reliably and can improve cooling systems.

## Contribution

The paper compares ML models for nanofluid thermophysical properties and identifies trends in thermal conductivity and viscosity.

## Key findings

- ML models like ANNs and random forests showed reliable performance in predicting nanofluid properties.
- Thermal conductivity increases with temperature and volume fractions, while viscosity decreases with nanoparticle size and concentration.
- Future work suggests using ML optimization for nanoparticle design in cooling applications.

## Abstract

The applications of nanofluids are widely beneficial in heat transmission and cooling systems. Nanofluid viscosity and thermal conductivity have a substantial effect on heat transfer applications and on devices such as solar and geothermal systems. Machine learning models enable faster, less expensive modeling of nanofluid thermophysical properties. These models are secure for future studies and in the development of nanotechnology. In this review, shape, size, temperature, and volume concentration are considered as inputs to develop several machine learning methods, such as artificial neural networks, support vector regression, decision trees, and random forests. These models were analyzed by comparing their R2 values, and the results indicated that machine learning-based models generally exhibited more reliable performance than the other approaches. The observation in this review was that thermal conductivity increases with temperature and volume fractions, whereas viscosity decreases with size, temperature, and volume fractions. To determine the optimal nanoparticle type, size, and concentration for specific applications such as data center cooling and high-heat-flux electronics, future research may employ ML-based optimization techniques.

## Full-text entities

- **Genes:** SHROOM4 (shroom family member 4) [NCBI Gene 57477] {aka MRXSSDS, SHAP, shrm4}, CSRP3 (cysteine and glycine rich protein 3) [NCBI Gene 8048] {aka CLP, CMD1M, CMH12, CRP3, MLP}
- **Diseases:** cancer (MESH:D009369), injury to (MESH:D014947)
- **Chemicals:** oxide (MESH:D010087), ethanol (MESH:D000431), aluminum nitride (MESH:C052045), copper (MESH:D003300), silver (MESH:D012834), Fe2O3 (MESH:C000499), diamond (MESH:D018130), Al2O3 (MESH:D000537), tungsten (MESH:D014414), MgO (MESH:D008277), lipid (MESH:D008055), ZrO2 (MESH:C028541), cobalt oxide (MESH:C060728), TiO2 (MESH:C009495), CMC (MESH:D002266), H2O (MESH:D014867), ZnO (MESH:D015034), oil (MESH:D009821), carbon (MESH:D002244), propylene glycol (MESH:D019946), titanium (MESH:D014025), CNTs (MESH:D037742), EG (MESH:D019855), TC (MESH:D013667), Mg(OH)2 (MESH:D008276), SiO2 (MESH:D012822), gold (MESH:D006046), CuO (MESH:C030973), aluminum (MESH:D000535), paraffin (MESH:D010232), graphene (MESH:D006108), COOH (-), silicon (MESH:D012825), Metals (MESH:D008670)
- **Species:** Homo sapiens (human, species) [taxon 9606]

## Full text

_Full body text omitted from this summary view._ Fetch the complete paper as Markdown: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12943064/full.md

## Figures

11 figures with captions in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12943064/full.md

## References

73 references — full list in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12943064/full.md

---
Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12943064