Investigation of Chemical Modification of MWCNTs and Its Influence on Properties of Paraffin/modified MWCNTs Nanocomposites as Phase Change Materials

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were modified by organo-silane in order to improve their dispersion state in paraffin wax. An experimental assessment was performed on the latent heat thermal energy storage performance of a novel family of paraffin-based composite phase change materials (PCMs) filled with the MWCNTs. Composite PCM specimens were prepared at different loadings (0, 0.1, 0.5, 1 wt.%) of unmodified MWCNTs and the organo-silane-modified MWCNTs. This study experimentally investigated the influences of diverse concentrations of two kinds of additives, modified and unmodified MWCNTs, in the paraffin on their temperature and phase change heat variations by DSC experiments to evaluate their feasibility as thermal storage applications