In the present study, an attempt is made to enhance the performance of heat pump by utilizing two types of nanofluids namely, copper and alumina nanofluids. These nanofluids were employed around the evaporator coil of the heat pump. The nanofluids were used to enhance the heat input to the system by means of providing an external jacket around the evaporator coil. Both the nanofluids were prepared in three volume fractions 1%, 2% and 5%. Water was chosen as the base fluid. The performance of the heat pump was assessed by calculating the coefficient of performance of the system when it was operated with and without nanofluid jacket. A significant enhancement in the coefficient of performance was noticed when copper and alumina nanofluids were employed in the system. Also, the coefficient of performance was found to have a direct relationship with the tested volume fractions. For the highest volume fraction of 5%, the performance of the heat pump was found to enhance by 23% with alumina nanofluid, while for copper nanofluid, a very significant enhancement in performance by 72% was observed. Thus, utilizing of nanofluids in heat pumps can be very beneficial towards performance enhancement and the idea can also be extended to other thermal systems such as steam power plant, automobile radiator, industrial heat exchangers and refrigeration systems.

Nowadays, nanofluids are plays a prominent role in enhancing the mechanism of the heat transfer. However, some nanofluids could have adverse impact on environment. The main objective of this work is to experimentally investigate the improvement of mixing nanoparticle (Titanium Oxide in this case) with the conventional fluid (water) on the heat exchanger performance. Various concertation of the nanoparticle and different flow rates of nanofluid are tested to observe the variation of the Number of Transfer Unit (NTU) as well as the exchanger effectiveness. Exchanger/Environment interaction is also of interest in the study. The heat transfer between the exchanger and the atmosphere is quantified at different flowrates. Results shows that presence of nanoparticle does improve the exchanger performance and such enhancement is augmented with the increase in the flowrate of the nanofluid. Mixing more particles of TiO₂ ameliorates the energy interaction of the hot/cold fluids. Nevertheless, the loss of heat to the atmosphere is shown to increase.