Mesoscopic description of effective thermal conductivity in porous systems, nanocomposites and nanofluids

© 2016, Springer International Publishing Switzerland. Nanosystems do not only refer to truly small systems, but also to systems characterized by some internal microstructures giving to them some special mechanical, thermal, electrical and optical properties which are very useful in practical applications. Such structures may be nanopores, or nanoparticles, or several parallel very thin layers. By regulating the main features of such internal structure, as for instance their characteristic size, or their average separation distance and their spatial distribution (in the case of nanopores and nanoparticles), as well as their thickness and the materials of nanolayers, one may control the transport properties of those systems.