Investigating the optical absorption and thermal conductivity of nano-enhanced lauric acid phase change material for energy storage application

Abstract

The issue of energy storage can be significantly reduced owing to phase change materials’ (PCMs) tremendous capacity for storing latent heat in a reliable and sustainable method. The limited thermal conductivity, however, prevents PCM from being widely used in a variety of uses. Highly conductive nanoparticles (NPs) are frequently integrated into PCMs to address this shortcoming. Due to their high thermal conductivity, such as Graphene (GR), carbon-based NPs are considered potential NPs to be implemented in PCMs. Herein, we report the Lauric acid (LA) PCM, and nano-enhanced LA with 0.3% and 0.7% additions of GR NPs. The composites were prepared by using two-step method. The samples were examined thermo-physically; thermal conductivity was obtained using a thermal property analyzer (TEMPOs), chemical composition was identified using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), photo-transmittance by Ultra-Violet Visible spectra (UV-Vis) and thermal stability was assessed by employing thermal gravimetric analyzer (TGA). As per results, thermal conductivity of LA was enhanced by 13.5% and 18.4% by inclusion of 0.3 and 0.7 weight percentages of GR NPs. The 0.7 weight percentage addition of GR NPs to base PCM exhibited 60% transmittance reduction in comparison to base LA. Further all prepared samples were thermally stable with no weight degradation until 140°C. The FTIR confirmed the samples were chemically stable as no any new peak observed in composites. Therefore, based on results, GR enhanced LA PCM can be considered as future potential composite to be implemented in energy storage applications.