Energy Storage Science and Technology ›› 2020, Vol. 9 ›› Issue (4): 1105-1112.doi: 10.19799/j.cnki.2095-4239.2020.0044

• Energy Storage Materials and Devices • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Thermal behavior of the nanoenhanced phase change materials

LIU"Lihui(), MO"Yajing, SUN"Xiaoqin, LI"Jie(), LI"Chuanchang, XIE"Baoshan   

  1. School of Energy and Power Engineering, Changsha University of Science & Technology, Changsha 410004, Hunan,China
  • Received:2020-01-18 Revised:2020-02-16 Online:2020-07-05 Published:2020-06-30
  • Contact: Jie LI E-mail:1491330248@qq.com;lijie@csust.edu.cn

Abstract:

Highly conductive particles have been used to improve the thermal conductivity of phase change materials (PCMs). To investigate the influence of the type and concentration of nano-particles and dispersants on the heat transfer process of PCMs, nano graphite (NG) and nano coconut shell based-carbon (NC) were used in the study to improve the thermal conductivity of paraffin. Type T thermocouples were used to monitor the temperature variation during melting under different boundary temperatures in a climate chamber. Thermovision tests were conducted to illustrate the temperature distribution. It was found that nano-particles were able to enhance the heat transfer of PCMs. The heat transfer of the PCMs with NG outperformed the PCMs with NC under same concentration. However, the distribution of nano-particles within the PCMs was not uniform. Dispersant, especially oleic acid, was able to improve the distribution of nano-particles, resulting in the improvement of heat transfer of NePCMs. When the nano-particles distributed evenly in the PCMs, the heat transfer rate of NePCMs increased with increasing concentration.

Key words: nano-enhanced phase change materials (NePCMs), paraffin, nano-coconut shell-based carbon, nano-graphite, heat transfer, dispersant

CLC Number: