Thermal conductivity measurements in phase change materials under freezing in presence of nanoinclusions

Abstract

We study the thermal properties and internal microstructures of n-hexadecane alkane containing nanoinclusions of copper nanowire, multi walled carbon nanotube, and graphene nanoplatelets of different volume fractions. Just below the freezing point, a large thermal contrast is observed in all the three systems. The thermal conductivity decreases with temperature below the freezing temperature and stabilizes at ∼10 °C below the freezing point. More than 100% of thermal conductivity enhancement is observed with 0.01 wt. % of nanofillers during the liquid to solid phase change. It is speculated that the reduction in the interfacial thermal resistance and the internal stress generated during the first order phase transition, due to the presence of nanoinclusions at grain boundaries of alkane crystals, led to the observed increase in the thermal conductivity. We found that an optimal nanoparticle loading with the space filling agglomerates in a phase change alkane can provide an extremely large thermal conductivity. Though the thermal conductivity enhancement at higher particle loading was independent of the bulk thermal conductivity of dispersed nanomaterials, an anomalously large thermal contrast is observed at a very low concentration in copper nanowire suspension. These results provide new approaches to achieve large thermal storage in organic phase change materials.