Thermal Performance Test and Improvement for Phase Change Material Composite through Nucleating Additive

Abstract

Solid-liquid phase change material (PCM) is of high phase change heat and application potentials of thermal energy storage. In this paper, the thermal performance of PCM composites of sodium acetate and urea are investigated through experiment. Moreover, the main thermal-physical properties of such PCM composites with different mixing mass ratios are obtained through T-history method. The results show that with the rising urea mass fraction, both the phase change temperature and latent heat of fusion (enthalpy) decline. It also indicates that strontium sulfate is an effective nucleating additive to decrease super-cooling degree during solidification process for such composite PCM. This work is of high significant in improving the thermal performance of PCM composite and extending its applications.