Enhancement of thermal conductivity and thermal stability of capric-lauric acid eutectic phase change material using carbonaceous materials

This paper investigates the effect of adding carbon based nano additives viz., graphene oxide (GO), multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) and activated carbon (AC) to capric-lauric acid (CA-LA) eutectic phase change material (PCM) in order to prepare nanoenhanced PCMs (NEPCMs). Field emission scanning electron microscopy images showed that GO has a sheet, MWCNT has a tube, and AC has a sheet with porous like structures, which influence the shape stability of eutectic PCM. The CA-LA has melting and solidification temperature at 18.92 °C and 18.30 °C, corresponding latent heat values were 107.9 J g−1 and 106.8 J g−1 analyzed by differential scanning calorimetry. The addition of carbonaceous materials shows a slight decrease in the latent heat values for NEPCMs which is quashed by its improved heat transfer rate. Thermal stability of NEPCMs were studied by thermogravimetric analysis. As-prepared carbonaceous materials had excellent thermo-physical properties in that MWCNT has higher thermal conductivity compared to GO and AC due to it light weight. Therefore, NEPCMs has acceptable thermal properties which are suitable for cold thermal energy storage.