Effect of Al2O3/CuO hybrid nanoparticles dispersion on melting process of PCM in a triplex tube heat storage

This research conducts an experimental and theoretical investigation of the melting characteristics of a phase change material in a triplex tube heat storage. A three-dimensional model is simulated numerically employing Ansys Fluent software. The enthalpy porosity method is chosen for solving the phase transition of paraffin wax. A blend of equal-volume CuO and Al2O3 hybrid nano-additives was used as conductive material to enhance heat transfer in PCM, which can be considered the originality of this study. At first, the differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) analysis was performed to determine the paraffin thermo-physical properties. Various volume concentrations of 0.4%, 0.8%, 1.6%, and 3.2% were dispersed in paraffin. Besides that, the experiment was performed under different mass flow and inlet fluid temperatures to study the effect of these two parameters on the phase transition rate. The outcomes indicate that adding an Al2O3/CuO hybrid nanoparticle of volume fraction of 0.4-3.2% causes a reduction in total charging time between 10% and 19%. The result also showed that the theoretical efficiency boosts from 61.7% to 84.8% as heat transfer fluid (HTF) inlet temperature increases from 62 °C to 78 °C.