Investigation of tetracosane thermal transport in presence of graphene and carbon nanotube fillers––A molecular dynamics study

Abstract

This paper examines the thermal properties of pure tetracosane paraffin, tetracosane-graphene, and tetracosanecarbon nanotube mixed phase change materials (PCM). The most important properties studied were thermal capacity in constant volume (Cv), mean square displacement of atoms (MSD), radial distribution function (RDF), density, phonon density of states (PDOS) and thermal conductivity (k) under different temperatures. The results show that graphene and carbon nanotube increase the thermal conductivity of the tetracosane at different temperatures, but decrease the molecular movement and its thermal capacity (except after about 360 K), and it can be said that this slightly decreases the paraffin melting temperature. It was demonstrated that carbon nanotube is more efficient than graphene to increase the thermal conductivity of the proposed PCM.