Many conventional fluids have low thermal conductivities. Adding thermally conductive nanometer-sized particles to these fluids transforms them into thermally conductive nanofluids. In this study, the thermal conductivity of aqueous alumina and multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) nanofluids was measured using the transient plane source (TPS) method with a thermal constants analyzer TPS. During each trial, 0.015 W of power were administered to each sample for two seconds. Results of the experiment showed ...
As green energy becomes increasingly important, more companies are exploring the possibility of using molten salts as heat transfer fluids for concentrated solar power. One of the downfalls of molten salts is their low thermal conductivity, which can be altered with the addition of thermally conductive nanoparticles. The thermal conductivity analyzer was used in this experiment to measure the thermal conductivity of molten salts after the addition of MoS2 (molybdenum ...
Phase change materials (PCMs) are substances that release large amounts of energy in the form of latent heat when they freeze. Paraffin waxes have many of the desired characteristics PCMs exhibit except that they have low thermal conductivity. In this experiment, Alumina and Carbon Black nanoparticles were added to two types of paraffin waxes (melting points of 20-25 °C) to increase their thermal conductivity. A Transient Plane Source (TPS) measured ...
Nanofluids are relatively new materials that are composed of liquids containing solid nanoparticles ranging from 1-100 nm. This study examined the thermal conductivity of Al2O3 (aluminum oxide)-H2O nanofluids in water under multiple pH and sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate (SDBS) conditions. A transient plane source (TPS) was used to measure the thermal conductivities of the samples. It was found that when the pH of the nanofluid reached approximately 8.0, the solution ...
In this paper, the authors discuss the preparation of microencapsulated phase change materials (PCMs). The PCMs used in this study were n-hexadecane and n-octadecane, and the shell was made up of poly(urea-formaldehyde). The effect of dispersing silver nanoparticles in the shells on the thermal storage properties of these encapsulated PCMs was also investigated. The enthalpies of fusion of the samples were determined experimentally, as was the thermal conductivity. It ...