A Review on Enhancement of Thermophysical Properties of Paraffin Wax PCM With Nanomaterials

In recent years, energy demand has increased many folds, and to overcome the demand and solve various environmental issues, the available energy is required to be stored in the form of Phase change materials (PCMs) due to its high latent heat capacity. But the heat transfer gets reduced due to low thermal conductivity of various PCMs. Hence, various studies have been performed to improve the drawback of reduced thermal conductivity of PCMs. Thus, prime objective of this paper is to review various methods to enhance thermal conductivity and other thermo-physical properties of PCMs that contain addition of additives with high thermal conductivity. Various nanomaterials including metallic used widely are studied, and results have been compared to check the changes in thermo-physical properties of new nanofluids. Results shows that Cu-Paraffin, Al2O3-Paraffin, Graphite/Graphene-Paraffin and Carbon Multi walled Nano tubes-Paraffin have been effective in improving the thermo-physical properties and heat transfer of PCMs in various proportions.