Abstract
A linear stability analysis is performed for the onset of Marangoni convection in a horizontal layer of a nanofluid heated from below and affected by rotation. The top boundary of the layer is assumed to be impenetrable to nanoparticles with their distribution being determined from a conservation condition while the bottom boundary is assumed to be a rigid surface with fixed temperature. The motion of the nanoparticles is characterized by the effects of thermophoresis and Brownian diffusion. A modification model is used in which the effects of Brownian diffusion and thermophoresis are taken into consideration by new expressions in the nanoparticle mass flux. Also, material properties of the nanofluid are modelled by non-constant constitutive expressions depending on nanoparticle volume fraction. The steady-state solution is shown to be well approximated by an exponential distribution of the nanoparticle volume fraction. The Chebyshev-Tau method is used to obtain the critical thermal and nanoparticle Marangoni numbers. Different stability boundaries are obtained using the modified model and the rotation.