Although various conjectures have been proposed to explain abnormal increase in thermal conductivity of nanofluids, the detailed mechanism could not be understood and explained yet. The main reason is primarily due to the lack of knowledge on the most fundamental factor governing the mechanisms such as Brownian motion, liquid layering, phonon transport, surface chemical effects and agglomeration. By applying surface complexation model for the measurement data of hydrodynamic size, zeta potential, and thermal conductivity, we have shown that sulfate charge state is mainly responsible for the increase in the present condition and may be the factor incorporating all the mechanisms as well. Moreover, we propose a new model including concepts of fractal and interfacial layer. The properties such as thickness and thermal conductivity of the layer are estimated from the surface charge states and the concept of electrical double layer. With this, we could demonstrate the pH dependences of the layer properties and eventually of the effective thermal conductivity of the nanofluid.