Nanoscale Metal Network Enhanced Phase Change Materials

University Of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell MA

Investigators

Abstract

Renewable energy sources such as solar energy, geothermal energy, and wind energy require effective and efficient thermal storage systems. Latent heat storage is an approach which can be accomplished using certain kinds of materials, including those known as Phase Change Materials, which have the ability to store energy at near constant temperature. However, most Phase Change Materials have unacceptably low thermal conductivities, and therefore their applications for high power, transient, and large-scale renewable energy systems are significantly limited. This award supports the study of a manufacturing process to synthesize and embed a nanoscale metallic network into phase change materials, taking advantage of the high thermal conductivity of the metallic network, to significantly improve thermal performance of Phase Change Material-based energy storage systems. This new type of Phase Change Materials would impact the renewable energy storage industry and diverse applications such as flexible electronics, electronic cooling, and smart textiles. The knowledge acquired from this project will also contribute to other industries such as medical, automobile, food processing and semiconductor packaging. The integration of fundamental research together with the educational efforts will advance engineering education and promote this new and exciting field of science at the high school senior and college freshmen levels. The objective of this research is to synthesize and study interrelationship among structures, processing and thermal properties of a novel phase change material embedded with a soldered metallic nanowire network. The major issues in nanoparticle-dispersed phase change materials include the settlement during melting-solidification cycling, and high interfacial thermal resistance of particles. The research is focused on fundamental issues in exploiting the new phase change material, such as soldering of nanowire-to-nanowire, nanowire-to-sidewall surface, and interactions between magnetic field and nanowires in phase change material fluids. A combined approach involving both modeling and theoretical analysis, and well-designed sets of experiments will be adopted to understand the relationships between network structure, processing parameters such as magnetic field strength, nanowire loading, spacing and size of magnetic pads, soldering temperature, and the resulting thermal properties of the new phase change material.