Tailoring the Thermal Conductivity of Paraffin and Low-cost Device for Measuring thermal conductivity of Phase Change Material

Abstract

In this work, experiment is carried out for melting process of paraffin wax dispersed with high conductive nano-fillers such as Carbon Nanotube (CNT) and ZnO. In addition, a simple, economically viable, easy operating experimental setup is proposed to measure the thermal conductivity of altered PCMs. In this setup, the sample is placed in an insulated transparent cavity and its one end maintained at constant temperature. However, other ends are adiabatic. Temperature at four specific location of melting paraffin in the cavity are measured by T-type thermocouples. The digital camera is used to capture the instantaneous images of the moving thermal front of melting at various time steps. ImageJ® is used to know velocity of the melting front of PCMs from captured images. Based on energy balance, a mathematical expression for estimating the conductivity of the altered PCMs is derived. The measurement of proposed device is compared with commercial thermal conductivity measuring device and data available in the literature. The obtained results have 95% confidence level against the commercial device results and literature results. Post-calibration, experimental study of pure paraffin and altered paraffin wax are carried to know insights of Spatiooral energy storing in form of latent heat. This research is useful for design the heat sink for thermal energy management of pulsating heating generating device.