Low thermal conductivity has been found to be a major constraint in developing energy efficient heat transfer fluids in several industrial applications. Nanofluids, prepared by the suspension of nanoparticles in water, have been found to enhance the thermal conductivity of the base fluid, and thereby the cooling rate of the steel surface. In this study, alumina nanofluid has been used to enhance the rate of cooling of a steel surface of dimension 100 mm × 100 mm × 6 mm, from an initial surface temperature of 900 °C. The sub-surface temperature data collected through thermocouple was used for inverse heat conduction calculation in order to estimate the temperature histories and heat flux at the surface. TEM analysis revealed that the nanoparticles were spherical in shape, having an average size of 14 nm. The concentration of the nanofluids was varied from 1 to 20 ppm in this study. A maximum cooling rate of 104 °C/s and critical heat flux (CHF) of 2.10 MW/m2 was obtained for a concentration of 10 ppm, which was 1.2 times and 1.5 times that attained in case of pure water, as depicted by the enhancement in thermal conductivity. Lower concentrations are used in order to strike a balance between surface roughness study and cooling applications. The surface roughness of the plate after the nanofluid jet impingement depicted an enhancement of 7.74%, thereby enhancing the number of nucleation sites and augmenting the value of CHF. © 2016, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.