Hybrid nanofluids are extensively analyzed in recent studies due to their better performance in numerous areas such as heat and mass transfer enhancement, biological fluid movement, medical equipment, heat exchangers, electronic cooling and automotive industry. In current study the nanoparticle concentration utilized is much important in biomedical industry. Major applications include drug delivery, radio-pharmaceuticals, centrifuging blood to obtain red blood cells and plasma, medical implants, onco therapeutics and photo thermal cancer therapy. In this regard, the primary focus of this study is to simulate a blood based unsteady hybrid nanofluid flow between two rotating, stretching disks and convective boundaries. The two nanoparticles in this study are uranium dioxide $$UO_{2}$$
U
O
2
and multi-walled carbon nanotubes MWCNTs. The hybrid nanofluid is under the influence of magnetohydrodynamic effects and chemical reaction with activation energy. The governing partial differential equations (PDEs) are transformed into ordinary differential equations (ODEs) using suitable similarity transform. Homotopy analysis method is used to solve the non-linear system of ODEs and $$\hbar $$
ħ
-curves are plotted to find suitable region of $$\hbar _{i}$$
ħ
i
for convergent series solution. Velocity profile is examined for axial, radial and tangential direction against various fluid parameters. Temperature and concentration profiles are analyzed for both convective and non-convective cases. It is observed that convective boundaries result in elevated temperature when compared with non-convective case. Moreover, skin friction, heat and mass transfer rates are also examined with respect to changing volume fraction $$\varphi _{UO_{2}}$$
φ
U
O
2
.The results revealed that skin friction and rate of heat transfer increases with increase in volume fraction of both nanoparticles $$UO_{2}$$
U
O
2
and MWCNTs while the mass transfer rate depicts contrasting behavior.