Projects
Projects: Projects for Investigator |
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| Reference Number | EP/H047603/1 | |
| Title | Carbon Nanotubes Filled with Phase-Change Materials: Superior Additives for High-Demand Energy Storage Applications | |
| Status | Completed | |
| Energy Categories | Energy Efficiency(Residential and commercial) 10%; Other Power and Storage Technologies(Energy storage) 80%; Energy Efficiency(Industry) 10%; |
|
| Research Types | Basic and strategic applied research 100% | |
| Science and Technology Fields | ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Chemical Engineering) 100% | |
| UKERC Cross Cutting Characterisation | Not Cross-cutting 100% | |
| Principal Investigator |
Dr D Mattia No email address given Chemical Engineering University of Bath |
|
| Award Type | Standard | |
| Funding Source | EPSRC | |
| Start Date | 01 September 2010 | |
| End Date | 31 August 2013 | |
| Duration | 36 months | |
| Total Grant Value | £1 | |
| Industrial Sectors | No relevance to Underpinning Sectors | |
| Region | South West | |
| Programme | Physical Sciences | |
| Investigators | Principal Investigator | Dr D Mattia , Chemical Engineering, University of Bath (100.000%) |
| Web Site | ||
| Objectives | ||
| Abstract | Nanomaterials, with their exceptional properties, provide a unique opportunity to significantly improve and/or enhance the mechanical, electrical, thermal or chemical properties of bulk media, thus facilitating innovations that can vastly improve human life. The proposed collaborative program between the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in the US and the University of Bath (UB) in the UK addresses a critical material challenge in the areas of high-rate heat transfer and thermal energy storage (TES). The technical objective of the work is to examine the hypothesis that carbon nanotubes (CNTs) filled with phase change materials (PCMs) are superior latent heat storage enhancers with potential for use in diverse energy applications ranging from high-demand microelectronic cooling to solar energy storage.According to the most recent available data, the total US energy consumption during 2004 was 100.3 quadrillion Btu; for comparison, the corresponding figure for the UK in the same year was 9.8 quadrillion Btu. Thermal transfer fluids and energy storage materials directly impact chemicals, petroleum refining, as well as the plastic and rubber industries, which collectively account for nearly 16% of the US energy consumption. Renewable energy -including solar- contributes about 1% of the current energy consumption and is projected to ultimately grow to ~20% or even higher. Thus, when one includes solar energy storage, which may lead to energy savings in the residential and commercial sectors, improvements from high-performance heat transfer/energy storage fluids could translate into significant monetary savings.In addition to large scale industrial applications, advanced electronic devices also face thermal management challenges posed by the increasingly higher level of heat generation, especially when combined with the gradually diminishing surface areas available for heat removal in these systems. Several methods have been proposed to improve cooling technology for electronic equipment with high heat generation; most of these methods fit into one of the two approaches.The first optimizes system geometry in order to maximize cooling performance. The second approach decreases the characteristic length of the system, thus increasing the heat transfer coefficient. The discovery of nanofluids, namely stable fluids containing suspended nanoparticles, with their anomalous thermal conductivity enhancement, has introduced a third approach in which the increase of the heat transfer coefficient is achieved by raising the value of the thermal conductivity of the coolant. Nanofluids containing multiwall carbon nanotubes have been shown to yield by far the highest thermal conductivity enhancement ever achieved in a liquid: a 150% increase in the conductivity of oil at ~1% vol. for 25-nm diameter nanotubes dispersed in ethylene glycol.The proposed work suggests an entirely new method to improve thermal performance of heat transfer and energy storage media, namely by increasing their specific heat (a.k.a. heat capacity). This approach has not been attempted before because of the tremendous challenges involved in producing the needed nanoparticles.The main hypothesis of the proposed work is that carbon nanotubes filled with phase change materials are superior latent heat storage enhancers. The present study will use nano-PCMs containing water. Water, despite its ubiquitous presence on earth and its very high values of latent heat, has not been used as a filler of PCMs. This element of the proposed investigation is entirely different from the traditional PCM approach (no enclosed liquids). Based on recently developed nanoscience procedures in the PIs' UIC and UK laboratories, by making CNTs, filling them with with phase change materials and dispersing them in heat transfer media, we expect to significant enhance the thermal transfer characteristics of liquids and solids used in high-demand energy transfer and storage application | |
| Publications | (none) |
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| Final Report | (none) |
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| Added to Database | 21/09/11 | |
