Thermal Conductance of Cu and Carbon Nanotube Interface Enhanced by a Graphene Layer

Thermal conduetances between Cu and graphene covered carbon nanotubes （gCNTs） are calculated by molecular dynamics simulations. The results show that the thermal conductance is about ten times larger than that of Cu- CNT interface. The enhanced thermal conductance is due to the larger contact area introduced by the graphene layer and the stronger thermal transfer ability of the Cu-gCNT interface. From the linear increasing thermal conductance with the increasing total contact area, an effective contact area of such an interface can be defined.

Thermal Property Enhancement of a Novel Shape-Stabilized Sodium Acetate Trihydrate-Acetamide/Expanded Graphite-Based Composite Phase Change Material

Phase change materials(PCMs)are a kind of highly efficient thermal storage materials which have a bright application prospect in many fields such as energy conservation in buildings,waste heat recovery,battery thermal management and so on.Especially inorganic hydrated salt PCMs have received increasing attention from researchers due to their advantages of being inexpensive and non-flammable.However,inorganic hydrated salt PCMs are still limited by the aspects of inappropriate phase change temperature,liquid phase leakage,large supercooling and severe phase separation in the application process.In this work,sodium acetate trihydrate was selected as the basic inorganic PCM,and a novel shape-stabilized composite phase change material(CPCM)with good thermal properties was prepared by adding various functional additives.At first,the sodium acetate trihydrate-acetamide binary mixture was prepared and the melting point was adjusted using acetamide.Then the binary mixture was incorporated into expanded graphite to synthesize a novel shape-stabilized CPCM.The thermophysical properties of the resultant shape-stabilized CPCM were systematically investigated.The microscopic morphology and chemical structure of the obtained shape-stabilized CPCM were characterized and analyzed.The experiment results pointed out that acetamide could effectively lower the melting point of sodium acetate trihydrate.The obtained shape-stabilized CPCM modified with additional 18%(mass fraction)acetamide and 12%(mass fraction)expanded graphite exhibited good shape stability and thermophysical characteristics:a low supercooling degree of 1.75℃and an appropriate melting temperature of 40.77℃were obtained;the latent heat of 151.64 kJ/kg and thermal conductivity of 1.411 W/(m·K)were also satisfactory.Moreover,after 50accelerated melting-freezing cycles,the obtained shape-stabilized CPCM represented good thermal reliability.

Wet-resilient graphene aerogel for thermal conductivity enhancement in polymer nanocomposites

Three-dimensional(3 D)graphene-based aerogels have significant potential for adsorption,sensors,and thermal management applications.However,their practical applications are limited by their disorganized structure and ultra-low resilience after compression.Some methods can realize a well-aligned structure,however,they involve high costs and complex technology.Herein,a 3 D graphene hybrid aerogel with an anisotropic open-cell and well-oriented structure is realized by unidirectional freeze casting,which combines the‘soft’(e.g.graphene oxide,Tween-80)and‘hard’(e.g.graphene assembly)components to realize full recovery after flattening.A graphene aerogel annealed at a moderate temperature(200℃)can possess superhydrophilicity and outstanding wet-resilience properties,including after being pressed under40 MPa.Furthermore,the graphene aerogel annealed at a high temperature of 1500℃exhibits excellent thermal conductivity enhancement efficiency in polydimethylsiloxane(PDMS).The resultant nanocomposites clearly demonstrate anisotropic thermal conductivity and promising applications as thermal interface materials.This strategy offers new insights into the design and fabrication of 3 D multifunctional graphene aerogels.

Processing Compressed Expanded Natural Graphite for Phase Change Material Composites

Phase change materials(PCMs)are used in various thermal energy storage applications but are limited by their low thermal conductivity.One method to increase conductivity involves impregnating organic PCMs into highly porous conductive matrix materials.Of these materials,compressed expanded natural graphite(CENG)matrices have received the most attention.Despite this attention,the effect that CENG processing has on PCM saturation and overall matrix thermal conductivity has not been fully investigated.Therefore,the effect of the heat treatment process used to expand intercalated graphite flakes is evaluated here.Higher heat treatment temperatures yielded higher saturation rates and overall saturation at similar matrix porosities.For example,increasing temperature from 300℃to 700℃resulted in approximately 60%-70%increase in pore saturation after 100 minutes of soaking.The exposure time to heat treatment had less of an effect on PCM saturation.The exposure time had negligible effect above 30 min and above 500℃heating temperatures.However,because the expanded graphite was found to oxidize around 700℃,the use of longer exposure time in manufacturing applications can be beneficial if a shortened impregnation time is needed.Heat treatment conditions did not impact thermal conductivity.The composite latent heat of fusion was also reduced approximately proportionally to the PCM mass fraction.A local maximum in axial thermal conductivity was observed at around 83%porosity,which is similar to previous studies.The observed conductivity at this maximum was a factor of 81 times greater than the conductivity of the PCM.