Evaluation of thermal performance in cold storage applications using EG-water based nano-composite PCMs

In this paper, EG of different concentration was added in water to form PCM with different freezing point. Then, 0.0625%, 0.125%, 0.25% and 0.5% MCNT was dispersed in to each EG-water basefluids respectively. The latent heat are 160.0, 141.0, 102.0 and 85.5 J/g and melting point are -12.2, -15.7, -22.1 and -25.4 ^o C for 15%~30% EG-water basefluids. We found that adding MCNT has very little influence on the latent heat and melting point because the total amount of MCNT is very small. Also, we noticed that thermal conductivity will increase with increasing amount of MCNT concentration in EG-water basefluids. An interesting observation is that the enhancement of thermal conductivity was much greater in solid state samples than liquid state samples. For example, in 0.5% MCNT sample, the enhancement of thermal conductivity in solid state was observed over twice higher than that in liquid state.