Date of Last Revision
2023-05-03 13:09:54
Major
Chemical Engineering
Degree Name
Bachelor of Science
Date of Expected Graduation
Spring 2019
Abstract
This work investigates the use of two different polyols, xylitol (Xyl) and erythritol (Ery), in conjunction with boron nitride (BN) aerogels, for the purpose of creating thermally conductive composites. While the BN filler in Xyl composites achieved a high anisotropic thermal conductivity of up to 4.53 W/m-K at 18.2 weight percent filler loading, they do not exhibit good phase-change material qualities due to a low solidification enthalpy even at low cooling rates. Alternatively, the BN-Ery composites have shown promising results with a solidification enthalpy of 225.14 J/g and a melting enthalpy of 385.84 J/g at a heat rate of 5 °C/min. These samples, however, have so far exhibited lower thermal conductivity values as high as 2.73 W/m-K at 15.5 weight percent filler loading. In these samples, the boron nitride scaffolds show good anisotropic heat transfer due to the use of ice-template method. However, since the polyol crystals radiate from the BN pillars, they cause the composite to have isotropic overall heat transfer.
Research Sponsor
Dr. Jiahua Zhu
First Reader
Dr. Harry Michael Cheung
Second Reader
Dr. Edward Evans
Recommended Citation
Dent, Russell; Kashfipour, Marjan; Mehra, Nitin; and Zhu, Jiahua, "Form Stable Phase-Change Materials" (2019). Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects. 994.
https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/honors_research_projects/994
Included in
Ceramic Materials Commons, Other Chemical Engineering Commons, Other Materials Science and Engineering Commons, Thermodynamics Commons, Transport Phenomena Commons