Investigation into thermal performance of nanosized phase change material (PCM) in microchannel flow

Purpose - Heat capacity enhancement is important for variety of applications, including microchannel cooling and solar thermal energy conversion. A promising method to enhance heat capacity of a fluid is by introducing phase change particles in a flow system. The purpose of this paper is to investigate heat capacity enhancement in a microchannel flow with the presence of phase change material (PCM) particles. Design/methodology/approach - Discrete phase model (DPM) and homogeneous model have been compared in this study. Water is used as the carrier fluid and lauric acid as the PCM particles with different volume concentrations, ranging from 0 to 10%. Both the models neglect the particle-particle interaction effects of PCM particles. Findings - The DPM indicates that presence of 10% volume concentration of PCM particles does not cause an increase in the pressure drop along the channel length. However, prediction from the homogeneous model shows an increase in the pressure drop due to the addition of nanoparticles in such a way that 10% volume concentration of particles causes 34.4% increase in pressure drop. Research limitations/implications - The study covers only 10% volume concentration of PCM particles; however, the model may be modified to include higher volume concentrations. The laminar flow is considered; it may be extended to study the turbulence effects. Practical implications - This work provides a starting framework for the practical use of different PCM particles, carrier fluid properties, and different particle volume concentrations in electronic cooling applications. Originality/value - The work presented is original and the findings will be very useful for researchers and engineers working in microchannel flow in cooling and thermal storage applications.