Evaluating the effect of magnesium oxide nanoparticles on the thermal energy storage characteristics of the inorganic PCM

Thermal storage with phase changing materials (PCM) has got the attention of the researchers in recent days. Among the PCMs, inorganic salt hydrates are having high potential to act as thermal storing medium due to their large latent content. However, they lack large-degree supercooling and have issues with phase segregation. In the present study, the thermal characteristics of sodium acetate trihydrate (SAT) have been studied under the influence of different weight fractions (0.0%, 0.25%, 0.5%, 0.75%, and 1.0%) of MgO nanoparticles (nano-MgO). Carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) has been used as the thickener, and nano-MgO has been tested as the nucleating medium. The results demonstrated that the use of 0.75% nano-MgO with SAT is suggested as the best composition to augment the thermal characteristics of SAT PCM. With 0.75% nano-MgO, the supercooling of the SAT was reduced to 0.32 °C, and the thermal conductivity of the SAT was enhanced by 40.94%. Nonetheless, the latent heat of the SAT PCM had not been significantly affected by the addition of nano-MgO until its fraction of 0.75%.