In the present work, the pool boiling critical heat flux, transient heat transfer characteristics, and bonding strength of thin Ni-Cr wire with aqua based reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanofluids are experimentally studied. Results indicate: (i) the critical heat flux (CHF) of 0.01, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 g·L− 1 concentrations of rGO-water nanofluids varies from 1.42 to 2.40 MW·m− 2; (ii) the CHF remains same for the tested samples during transient heat transfer studies and (iii) a constant value of CHF upto 10 tests when the nanocoated Ni-Cr wire is tested with DI water and deterioration occurs beyond this which implies a chance of peel off of rGO layer below the critical coating thickness. © 2017 Elsevier B.V.