Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• Mohammad Saleh Barghi Jahromi ¹
• Vali Kalantar ¹
• Mohammad Sefid ¹
• Masoud Iranmanesh ²
• Hadi Samimi Akhijahani ³

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran.

² Department of Energy, Institute of Science and High Technology and Environmental Sciences, Graduate University of Advanced Technology, Kerman, Iran.

³ Department of BioSystems Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran.

Abstract

Paraffin waxes are widely used as commercial organic heat storage phase change (PCM) for many applications due to their suitable properties; high heats of fusion, nonpoisonous, stable properties, no phase separation, and the phase process only results in a small volume change. Meanwhile, it suffers from low thermal conductivity. Various techniques can be enhanced the thermal conductivity of PCMs by incorporating the dispersion of high-conductivity particles or nanomaterial in the PCM itself and employing metal foams. Using nanoparticles has the disadvantages of an expensive cost and particle deposition after various cycles. Hence, in this study, some experiments were carried out to investigate the effect of porous media like copper foam and iron wool as the filler instead of nanomaterials on improving the heat conductivity of PCM. The results show that the porous foam increases the heat transfer and during the charging operation, the temperature of the porous plate wall increases continuously at the same rate as the paraffin. In 2400 s, the temperature of pure PCM, iron wool and copper foam reaches 67.3, 72.5 and 73.27℃ , respectively. The optimal mode is the one where the copper absorber plate is connected to the copper foam, reducing the charging time by 600 s compared to pure PCM and saving 75% of energy. Connecting the copper absorber plate to the iron wool has a good thermal performance and stores 70.83% of energy, so the iron wool has an acceptable performance and is suitable for storage systems.

Keywords

• Copper foam and iron wool
• Copper absorber plate
• Energy storage
• Phase change material

Main Subjects

• Thermal energy storage