Nitrate materials play an important role in the development of latent thermal energy storage (LTES) systems. This paper examined the thermo-physical properties of sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate and their mixtures with expanded graphite (EG) additives for their applications in solar energy storage. The transient hot-wire method measured the apparent thermal conductivities of the nitrates and nitrates/EG mixtures. Results showed that nitrates/EG mixture PCMs with the highest concentrations of ...
This work introduces a direct method for measuring the specific heat of solids, using the Transient Plane Source Technique (TPS). To begin, a sample is placed into a thermally conductive holder, surrounded by a thermally insulating material. A thermally conductive sample holder is used, to limit the time it takes to achieve a temperature equilibrium between the holder and the sensor. Insulating the sample holder is to minimize heat loss ...
