Enhancing heat transfer in porous media with nanosolutions: A comprehensive review of mechanisms, models, and applications

Heat transfer enhancement in nanosolutions and porous media has garnered significant interest due to its potential to create next-generation thermal management systems. Here, experimental, numerical, and theoretical results are summarized to show that the addition of nanoparticles enhances thermal conductivity up to 40% and CHTC in laminar and turbulent regimes by 30–50%. Similarly, nanosolutions with PCMs exhibited a reduction of 20–35% in time during their melting/solidification process, while the entropy generation could be minimized by 15–25% in these thermal systems. These applications, ranging from energy storage to electronic cooling and even heat exchangers, point out that nanofluids and porous media could together have transformative potential. The key mechanisms occurring in such systems—namely, conduction, convection, and radiation heat transfer—are addressed in this review paper, while some directions are also provided toward further research work to meet the existing challenges for such techniques in practical applications.