| Summary: | Highly stable phase change materials with superior thermal properties and reliability are of utmost need for
waste heat recovery applications. Due to low supercooling, non-corrosivity, and low phase separation, organic
phase change materials are preferred for thermal energy storage over inorganic phase change materials. Despite
their other advantages, the limited heat conductivity of organic phase change materials limits their practical use
in thermal energy storage. Therefore, current research focuses on developing nano-enhanced organic phase
change materials by dispersing one-dimensional thread-shaped multi-wall carbon nanotubes with different
weight percentages to improve the thermal properties of the base PEG-1000 PCM. The two-step method was
adopted to develop phase change material composites to establish an improved thermal network, resulting in
improved thermal conductivity. An ongoing study evaluated structural stability, chemical stability, thermal
property, optical absorptivity, transmissivity, and thermal reliability of the formulated nano-enhanced phase
change material composites. The results demonstrated that the highest thermal conductivity of nanocomposite
was improved by 104.2 % at 0.7 wt% multiwall carbon nanotube. The composite’s optimum latent heat and
melting point were 41.5 ◦C & 140 J/g, respectively. Additionally, the composite retained its thermal and
chemical performance after being subjected to 500 thermal cyclic studies. Subsequently, a heat transfer simulation
study is conducted to exhibit the effect of higher thermal conductivity of newly formulated nanocomposites
for heat transfer compared to base PCM using 2-D energy simulation software.
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