Enhancing the thermal transfer properties of phase change material for thermal energy storage by impregnating hybrid nanoparticles within copper foams

A phase-change material (PCM) is recommended for thermal energy storage. However, conventional PCMs suffer from poor thermal conductivity. To solve this problem, this study presented different compositions to improve PCM thermal conductivity. The effects of the average specific surface of metal foams and the weight percentage of metal foams and hybrid nanoparticles on the phase-change materials' thermal characteristics were investigated. The findings demonstrate that thermal performance of the PCM composite is noticeably better than that of pure PCM and increasing the weight content of foam metal and hybrid nanoparticles leads to an increase in thermal conductivity of 37.7% for the same type of copper. The results also reveal that thermal conductivity performance increases as the amount of metal foam and hybrid nanoparticles increases. The average specific surface value of 1600 m2/m3 shows better thermal properties compared with other average specific surface values. Moreover, the heat capacity is affected by the increase in the content of metal foam. Many drawbacks have been found in using foam metal in PCM preparation, mainly the fixed shapes of metal foams compared with the formability nature of the PCM, which effects the shapes of the PCM composites and thus limits its use in applications with limited size. This novel approach to improving PCM's thermal behaviour may be applied to the creation of thermal energy storage devices with predetermined characteristics.