Heat Transfer Enhancement of Paraffin Phase Change Composite Material Using Recycled Aluminum Sawing Chips

Abstract

AbstractThe present paper investigates the enhancement of the paraffin’s thermal conductivity by incorporating aluminium metallic foam made using reused sawing chips in the phase change materials.\n In order to achieve the proposed goal, open-cell foams from aluminium alloy series 5754 sawing chips were successfully fabricated by the sintering and dissolution process. The increase of the porosity was carried out using sodium chloride particles as a space holder. The obtained foam was infiltrated with paraffin wax in order to manufacture the paraffin/aluminium foam composite phase change materials. The thermal properties of the obtained composites were compared with that of pure paraffin and a similar paraffin/unsintered sawing chips composite. The thermal conductivity of the paraffin/metallic foam composite increased to 2.48\xa0W/mK and the thermal diffusivity to 9.1\xa0m2/s, corresponding to an approximately ten times increase in conductivity and a seven times increase in the thermal diffusivity, respectively. This came together with a 230% increase of the density to around 2\xa0g/cm3 and a decrease of the latent heat capacity compared with the pure paraffin up to 41%.\n