Experimental performance of a LED thermal management system with suspended microencapsulated phase change material

•Experimental study of thermal management with suspended microencapsulated PCM.•Using suspended PCM microcapsules instead of water improved thermal management.•Optimal MPCMS concentration was analyzed by a dimensionless thermophysical factor.•Variations of cooling performance were attributed to phase change of MPCM. Effective thermal management is crucial for electronic devices, while microencapsulated phase change material (MPCM) has great potential in the field of electronic heat dissipation. However, no existing study has conducted experimental research on the influence of MPCM suspension (MPCMS) on the thermal management performance of electronic devices. In the present study, improvement in the thermal management of LED by using MPCMS as coolant was experimentally demonstrated. The morphology, phase-change and thermophysical properties of the MPCM were observed. Experimental results indicate that the TEC-MHS system that uses MPCMS as coolant exhibited enhanced cooling capacity compared with the system that uses water. A dimensionless thermophysical factor was defined to study the effect of variation in thermophysical properties on cooling performance. Interestingly, the highest thermophysical factor and the best cooling performance were achieved at the same MPCMS concentration. The variation of cooling performance with the ambient temperature and flow rate of MPCMS were found to be attributed to the phase change of MPCM. The experimental results indicate that increased MPCMS concentration does not always lead to improvement of the cooling performance, while the thermophysical and phase change properties of MPCM play critical roles.