Saturday 14 June 2014

Ferrofluid

ferrofluid (portmanteau of ferromagnetic and fluid) is a liquid that becomes strongly magnetized in the presence of a magnetic field. Ferrofluid was invented in 1963 by NASA's Steve Papell as a liquid rocket fuel that could be drawn toward a pump inlet in a weightless environment by applying a magnetic field. 

Ferrofluid has been submersed in sugar water. Sugar has been added to increase the density of the water to the point where the ferrofluid appears weightless

Ferrofluids are colloidal liquids made of nanoscale ferromagnetic, orferrimagnetic, particles suspended in a carrier fluid (usually an organic solvent or water). Each tiny particle is thoroughly coated with asurfactant to inhibit clumping. Large ferromagnetic particles can be ripped out of the homogeneous colloidal mixture, forming a separate clump of magnetic dust when exposed to strong magnetic fields. The magnetic attraction of nanoparticles is weak enough that the surfactant's Van der Waals force is sufficient to prevent magnetic clumping oragglomeration. Ferrofluids usually[2] do not retain magnetization in the absence of an externally applied field and thus are often classified as "superparamagnets" rather than ferromagnets[citation needed][3]

The difference between ferrofluids and magnetorheological fluids (MR fluids) is the size of the particles. The particles in a ferrofluid primarily consist of nanoparticles which aresuspended by Brownian motion and generally will not settle under normal conditions. MR fluid particles primarily consist of micrometre-scale particles which are too heavy for Brownian motion to keep them suspended, and thus will settle over time because of the inherent density difference between the particle and its carrier fluid. These two fluids have very different applications as a result. Ferrofluid is a liquid that contain magnetic particles . These magnetic particles are accurately 10 NM in size . In case this fluid could be made a pretty decoration controlled by magnet     

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