A mathematical model has been developed for steady-state boundary layer flow of a nanofluid past an impermeable vertical flat wall in a porous medium saturated with a water-based dilute nanofluid containing oxytactic microorganisms. The nanoparticles were distributed sufficiently to permit bioconvection. The product of chemotaxis constant and maximum cell swimming speed was assumed invariant. Using appropriate transformations, the partial differential conservation equations were non-dimensionalised to yield a quartet of coupled, non-linear ordinary differential equations for momentum, energy, nanoparticle concentration and dimensionless motile microorganism density, with appropriate boundary conditions. The dominant parameters emerging in the normalised model included the bioconvection Lewis number, bioconvection Peclet number, Lewis number, buoyancy ratio parameter, Brownian motion parameter, thermophoresis parameter, local Darcy-Rayleigh number and the local Peclet number. An implicit numerical solution to the well-posed two-point non-linear boundary value problem is developed using the well-tested and highly efficient Keller box method. Computations are validated with the Nakamura tridiagonal implicit finite difference method, demonstrating excellent agreement. Nanoparticle concentration and temperature were found to be generally enhanced through the boundary layer with increasing bioconvection Lewis number, whereas dimensionless motile microorganism density was only increased closer to the wall. Temperature, nanoparticle concentration and dimensionless motile microorganism density were all greatly increased with a rise in Peclet number. Temperature and dimensionless motile microorganism density were reduced with increasing buoyancy parameter, whereas nanoparticle concentration was increased. The present study found applications in the fluid mechanical design of microbial fuel cell and bioconvection nanotechnological devices.

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The laminar boundary layer flow and heat transfer of Casson non-Newtonian fluid from a permeable horizontal cylinder in the presence of thermal and hydrodynamic slip conditions is analysed. The cylinder surface is maintained at a constant temperature. The boundary layer conservation equations, which are parabolic in nature, are normalised into non-similar form and then solved numerically with the well-tested, efficient, implicit, stable Keller-Box finite-difference scheme. Increasing velocity slip induces acceleration in the flow near the cylinder surface and the reverse effect further from the surface. Increasing velocity slip consistently enhances temperatures throughout the boundary layer regime. An increase in thermal slip parameter strongly decelerates the flow and also reduces temperatures in the boundary layer regime. An increase in Casson rheological parameter acts to elevate considerably the skin friction (non-dimensional wall shear stress) and this effect is pronounced at higher values of tangential coordinate. Temperatures are however very slightly decreased with increasing values of Casson rheological parameter. Increasing mass flow injection (blowing) at the cylinder surface causes a strong acceleration, whereas increasing suction is found to induce the opposite effect. The study finds applications in rheological chocolate food processing.