Preparation and performance characterization of metal foam/paraffin/ single-walled carbon nanotube composite phase change material

In this study, metal foam/paraffin/SWCNT phase change material (MFPCM-SWCNT) with high thermal conductivity was prepared by two-step method. Firstly, the paraffin/SWCNT composite material (PCM-SWCNT) was prepared by melt blending method and the microstructure, chemical structure and thermal properties were characterized. The results show that: SWCNT can effectively enhance the thermal conductivity. Compared with paraffin, the thermal conductivity of PCM-SWCNT1% and PCM-SWCNT2% are increased by about 26.1% and 56.5% respectively. Then MFPCM and MFPCM-SWCNT were prepared by melt impregnation method. Characterization results show SWCNT can further enhance the thermal conductivity of MFPCM. Compared with MFPCM, MFPCM-SWCNT1% (with 1% mass fraction SWCNT) can enhance thermal conductivity by 12% and only reduce melting enthalpy by 3.8%; MFPCM-SWCNT2% enhances thermal conductivity by 21.3% and reduce melting enthalpy only 4.9%. Based on that, the thermal storage experiments of MFPCM and MFPCM-SWCNT were carried out. The results showed that both the porosity reduction and the addition of SWCNT reduced the surface temperature near the heat source, but the addition of SWCNT extended the temperature control time. The study also found that the dispersion of SWCNT in PCM has direct effect on the total performance of MFPCM-SWCNT.