Experimental heat transfer analysis of macro packed neopentylglycol with CuO nano additives for building cooling applications

Abstract

The overall objective of the work reported in this paper was to experimentally study the effect of adding CuO nanoparticles on heat transfer performance of Neopentyl Glycol (NPG) in building cooling applications. Macro packed NPG added with 0.1% weight fraction of CuO nanoparticles were subjected to thermal cycling characterization and the thermal performance study in building application. Heat transfer performance analysis was conducted using the macro packed PCM in a building model with a 100 W incandescent bulb for simulating solar energy source. The differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis showed that thermal cycling caused about 10.4% and 11.05% decrease in enthalpy of transition in the case pure NPG and NPG + 0.1% CuO respectively. The results of Thermogravimetry (TG) analysis and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) analysis respectively confirmed the thermal and chemical stability of NPG +0.1% CuO in the application range of building cooling. The thermal conductivity measurement by T-history method showed an increase of 12.75% due to the addition of 0.1% CuO. The experimental results showed that the lower room temperature was reduced by about 3 °C by the use of macro packed NPG. The addition of CuO nanoparticles accelerated the rate of charging and discharging that lead to the decrease in charging and discharging time of macropacked NPG. It was observed that the addition of 0.1% weight fraction of CuO nanoparticles to NPG resulted in about 6.45% increase in the lower room temperature compared 11.6 7% increase observed in the case of pure NPG.