Thermal Conductivity, Density and Calorific Value of Sargassum Fluitans and Sargassum Natans Species

Abstract

In this study, we obtained the values of the thermodynamic properties of sargassum that includes S. fluitans and S. natans species, which are the ones that most arrive at the coasts of the Mexican Caribbean. The sargassum samples, collected at the coast, were dried in a direct type of solar dryer and their final relative humidity was 15% dry base. Two physical models were designed to construct biscuits of 0.0127 m in diameter and 0.0063 m in length, which were used to obtain the density and calorific value and those used for thermal conductivity, were 0.069 m in diameter and 0.008 m thick. The density resulted in 660.62 𝑘𝑔/𝑚3 . To determine the calorific value, a commercial calorimetric pump was used, and the value obtained was 17,950 𝑘𝐽/𝑘𝑔. For thermal conductivity, a device that employs the hot plate and guard method was designed and built and its value was 0.346 𝑊/𝑚°𝐶. These values indicate that it is possible to use dehydrated sargassum to produce energy, which has approximately a value of 75% of that obtained for sugar cane bagasse. With these three values and using the thermal diffusivity definition equation, this last parameter was calculated in 2.917 × 10−11 𝑚2 /𝑠.