Nanofluids are nowadays representing an exciting tool with significant impact and tremendous potential in several industrial applications. In the present paper, we focus our attention on the tunability of the electrical and dielectric properties of alumina nanoparticle-based nanofluids achieved by preliminary modifying the particle surface charging by a diffuse coplanar dielectric barrier discharge plasma treatment. We produced a parametric study on the tuning of the plasma-treatedalumina-based nanofluid electrical response as a function of the selected discharge feeding gases. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.