Nanoscale Metal Network Enhanced Phase Change Materials

太阳能、地热能和风能等可再生能源需要有效和高效的蓄热系统。潜热存储是一种可以使用某些类型的材料来实现的方法，包括那些被称为相变材料的材料，这些材料具有在接近恒温的情况下存储能量的能力。然而，大多数相变材料具有不可接受的低导热系数，因此它们在大功率、暂态和大规模可再生能源系统中的应用受到了极大的限制。该奖项支持研究一种制造工艺，利用金属网络的高导热性，将纳米级的金属网络合成并嵌入相变材料中，以显著改善基于相变材料的储能系统的热性能。这种新型相变材料将影响可再生能源存储行业和各种应用，如柔性电子产品、电子冷却和智能纺织品。从这个项目中获得的知识也将有助于其他行业，如医疗、汽车、食品加工和半导体包装。基础研究与教育努力的结合将推动工程教育，并在高中、高中和大学一年级推广这一新的、令人兴奋的科学领域。本研究的目的是合成和研究一种嵌入焊接金属纳米线网络的新型相变材料的结构、工艺和热性能之间的相互关系。纳米粒子分散相变材料的主要问题包括熔融-凝固循环过程中的沉降和粒子的高界面热阻。研究集中在开发新型相变材料中的基本问题，如纳米线到纳米线的焊接，纳米线到侧壁的表面，以及相变材料流体中磁场和纳米线的相互作用。我们将采用建模和理论分析相结合的方法和精心设计的一系列实验来了解网络结构、工艺参数(如磁场强度、纳米线加载、磁垫间距和尺寸)、焊接温度以及由此产生的新相变材料的热性能之间的关系。

Renewable energy sources such as solar energy, geothermal energy, and wind energy require effective and efficient thermal storage systems. Latent heat storage is an approach which can be accomplished using certain kinds of materials, including those known as Phase Change Materials, which have the ability to store energy at near constant temperature. However, most Phase Change Materials have unacceptably low thermal conductivities, and therefore their applications for high power, transient, and large-scale renewable energy systems are significantly limited. This award supports the study of a manufacturing process to synthesize and embed a nanoscale metallic network into phase change materials, taking advantage of the high thermal conductivity of the metallic network, to significantly improve thermal performance of Phase Change Material-based energy storage systems. This new type of Phase Change Materials would impact the renewable energy storage industry and diverse applications such as flexible electronics, electronic cooling, and smart textiles. The knowledge acquired from this project will also contribute to other industries such as medical, automobile, food processing and semiconductor packaging. The integration of fundamental research together with the educational efforts will advance engineering education and promote this new and exciting field of science at the high school senior and college freshmen levels.The objective of this research is to synthesize and study interrelationship among structures, processing and thermal properties of a novel phase change material embedded with a soldered metallic nanowire network. The major issues in nanoparticle-dispersed phase change materials include the settlement during melting-solidification cycling, and high interfacial thermal resistance of particles. The research is focused on fundamental issues in exploiting the new phase change material, such as soldering of nanowire-to-nanowire, nanowire-to-sidewall surface, and interactions between magnetic field and nanowires in phase change material fluids. A combined approach involving both modeling and theoretical analysis, and well-designed sets of experiments will be adopted to understand the relationships between network structure, processing parameters such as magnetic field strength, nanowire loading, spacing and size of magnetic pads, soldering temperature, and the resulting thermal properties of the new phase change material.