Theoretical evaluation of the heating rate of ferrofluids

This paper presents a theoretical model for the determination of the effective specific heat of a ferrofluid. With this model, we have evaluated different approximations to the effective specific heat c eff of a water-based ferrofluid with magnetite particles and propose a practical equation for the computation of the effective heating rate of ferrofluids. In the case of the investigated ferrofluid, the heating rate is shown to increase approximately linearly with the increase of the particle volume fraction φ . This result is of practical importance in cancer treatment by magnetic hyperthermia of tissues and other thermal applications.