Enhancing the Heat Transfer in an Active Barocaloric Cooling System Using Ethylene-Glycol Based Nanofluids as Secondary Medium

Ciro Aprea, Adriana Greco, Angelo Maiorino and Claudia Masselli
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Ciro Aprea: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II 132, 84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy
Adriana Greco: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, P.le Tecchio 80, 80125 Napoli, Italy
Angelo Maiorino: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II 132, 84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy
Claudia Masselli: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II 132, 84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 15, 1-15

Abstract: Barocaloric cooling is classified as environmentally friendly because of the employment of solid-state materials as refrigerants. The reference and well-established processes are based on the active barocaloric regenerative refrigeration cycle, where the solid-state material acts both as refrigerant and regenerator; an auxiliary fluid (generally water of water/glycol mixtures) is used to transfer the heat fluxes with the final purpose of subtracting heat from the cold heat exchanger coupled with the cold cell. In this paper, we numerically investigate the effect on heat transfer of working with nanofluids as auxiliary fluids in an active barocaloric refrigerator operating with a vulcanizing rubber. The results reveal that, as a general trend, adding 10% of copper nanoparticles in the water/ethylene-glycol mixture carries to +30% as medium heat transfer enhancement.

Keywords: nanofluids; caloric cooling; barocaloric; solid-state cooling; acetoxy silicone rubber; Cu nanofluids; ethylene-glycol nanofluids; heat transfer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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