Parametric Study on the Effect of Addition of Copper Oxide, Titanium Dioxide, Iron Oxide and Zinc Oxide on the Heat of Fusion and Thermal Conductivity of Lauric Acid

Author : Sevilleno, John Adams L.
Major Adviser : Bautista, Ramer P.
Committee Members : Bambase Jr., Manolito E.; Migo-Sumagang, Maria Victoria P.
Year : 2017
Month : December
Type : Thesis
Degree: BS
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Abstract

Lauric acid is a medium chain fatty acid under the category of organic phase change materials (PCM). As an organic phase change material, lauric acid has the advantage over other PCMs of having good chemical stability, shows very little to no subcooling and good cycle stability. Lauric acid has a known melting temperature of 43.22 ℃ suitable for cooling applications of computer CPU. However, lauric acid has low thermal conductivity and heat of fusion that impedes its ability to function effectively as thermal energy storage. The effects of the adding different metal oxides (iron oxide, copper oxide, titanium dioxide and zinc oxide), varying the percent weight added (2% wt and 8%wt) and varying the starting temperature (44 ℃ and 49 ℃) on the thermal properties of lauric acid (heat of fusion and thermal conductivity) were studied. The highest thermal conductivity with added metal oxide is with TiO₂ at 0.35965 W/m-K and the lowest is observed with Fe₂O₃ with thermal conductivity of 0.25607 W/m-K. The highest heat of fusion is observed with TiO₂ and the lowest with Fe₂O₃ with 14.27 x103 J/kg and 80.454 x103 J/kg respectively. The experimental results showed that the addition of commercially available metal oxides reduced the thermal conductivity and heat of fusion of lauric acid. The inability of the metal oxides to maintain even distribution in the suspension and the large surface-to-volume ratio of the added metal oxide particles caused the observed decrease in the thermal conductivity and heat of fusion of lauric acid.


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