Solidification of Graphene-Assisted Phase Change Nanocomposites inside a Sphere for Cold Storage Applications

Rajendran Prabakaran, Shaji Sidney, Dhasan Mohan Lal, C. Selvam and Sivasankaran Harish
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Rajendran Prabakaran: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Anna University, College of Engineering Campus, Chennai 600 025, India
Shaji Sidney: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Anna University, College of Engineering Campus, Chennai 600 025, India
Dhasan Mohan Lal: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Anna University, College of Engineering Campus, Chennai 600 025, India
C. Selvam: Department of Mechanical Engineering, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai 603 203, India
Sivasankaran Harish: International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research, Kyushu University, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 18, 1-16

Abstract: In this work, we experimentally investigated the solidification behavior of functionalized graphene-based phase change nanocomposites inside a sphere. The influence of graphene nanoplatelets on thermal transport and rheological characteristics of the such nanocomposites were also discussed. We adopted the covalent functionalization method to prepare highly stable phase change nanocomposites using commercially available phase change material (PCM) OM08 as the host matrix and graphene nanoplatelets (GnPs) with 0.1, 0.3, and 0.5 volume percentage as the nano inclusions. We report a maximum thermal conductivity enhancement of ~102 and ~46% with 0.5 vol% in the solid and liquid states, respectively. Rheological measurements show that the pure PCM shows Newtonian behavior, whereas the inclusion of GnPs leads to the transition to non-Newtonian behavior, especially at lower shear rates. Viscosity of the nanocomposite increases with an increase in the volume fraction of GnP. For 0.5 vol% of GnPs, maximum increase in viscosity was found to be ~37% at a shear rate of 1000 s −1 . Time required for complete solidification decreases with the loading of GnPs. Maximum reduction in solidification time with 0.5 vol% of GnPs was ~40% for bath temperature of −10°C.

Keywords: solidification; phase change material; fatty acids; graphene nanoplatelets; cold thermal energy storage (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 (9)

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