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Improvement of supercooling and thermal conductivity of the sodium acetate trihydrate for thermal energy storage with α-Fe2O3 as addictive

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Abstract

In this study, iron oxide nanoparticles (α-Fe2O3) have been firstly used as a nucleating agent, which simultaneously reduces the supercooling degree of sodium acetate trihydrate (SAT) and improves its thermal conductivity. A series of SAT composite phase change materials (PCMs) for potential latent heat thermal energy storage applications were prepared by a ball milling method using carboxymethyl cellulose as a thickening agent and sodium dodecyl sulfonate as a dispersant. In order to investigate the effect of the mass ratio of α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles on the supercooling degree of SAT, various α-Fe2O3 contents (0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, and 1.0 mass%) were added into the SAT matrix. It was found that the supercooling degree of the SAT composite PCM was reduced to 0 °C at a α-Fe2O3 content of 0.8 mass%. Furthermore, no chemical reaction between SAT and α-Fe2O3 occurred, and the presence of α-Fe2O3 had no effect on the energy storage capability of SAT. The thermal conductivity of the SAT composite PCM was improved by 22.5% due to the addition of 0.8 mass% α-Fe2O3. After 60 melting–freezing cycles, the composite PCMs retained excellent stability with a small reduction in the phase change temperature (0.33 °C) and low latent heat loss rate (0.796%).

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Abbreviations

λ :

Thermal conductivity (W m−1 K−1)

a :

Thermal diffusion coefficient (mm2 s−1)

ρ :

Density (g cm−3)

C p :

Specific heat at constant pressure (J kg−1 K−1)

SAT:

Sodium acetate trihydrate

α-Fe2O3 :

Iron oxide nanoparticles

PCMs:

Phase change materials

CMC:

Carboxymethyl cellulose

EG:

Expanded graphite

SDBS:

Sodium dodecyl sulfonate

XRD:

X-ray diffraction

DSC:

Differential scanning calorimetry

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Acknowledgements

The work is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No: 2682015ZT01), the Youth Science and Technology Innovation Team of Sichuan Province of Building Environment and Energy Efficiency (No: 2015TD0015), the Natural Science Foundation of China (No: 51678488), and National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents (No: BX201600148).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, 610031, China

    Yu He, Nan Zhang, Yanping Yuan, Xiaoling Cao, Liangliang Sun & Yanlin Song

  2. State Key Laboratory of Aerodynamics, China Aerodynamics Research and Development Center, Mianyang, 621000, China

    Nan Zhang

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  1. Yu He
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Correspondence to Yanping Yuan.

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He, Y., Zhang, N., Yuan, Y. et al. Improvement of supercooling and thermal conductivity of the sodium acetate trihydrate for thermal energy storage with α-Fe2O3 as addictive. J Therm Anal Calorim 133, 859–867 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-018-7166-2

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