Refrigerants today include blends of e.g. hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs). HFOs have low global warming potential however are also less stable, risking compositional variations, with not much known yet. To add new knowledge, R452B (with R32, R125 and R1234yf) is analysed here, in used (7790 h in a heat pump) and pristine conditions, in a gas chromatograph with a thermal conductivity detector (TCD) and a flame ionization detector (FID). R452B was compared with moisture, N2 and a calibration blend containing CO2, R32, R125, R134a and R1234yf. The results yielded, besides the intended three components in R452B, also traces of R134a, moisture, possibly CO2 and several unknown compounds eluting before (thus lighter than) CO2. Some unknowns appeared only in TCD are thus non-combustible (including possibly O-2), while some appeared in both TCD and FID. The identification of these unknowns, calibrations for those and a comprehensive compositional analysis will follow.

Aqueous solutions of ethylene glycol are commonly used as secondary fluids in different indirect refrigeration systems and heat pumps as well as nanofluids. A very extensive literature review has been done, including more than 90 references published from 1905 to 2023. Despite the wide application and importance, especially in the energy sector, ethylene glycol solutions seem to be less investigated in low temperature ranges and more research is required to improve the quality and quantity of available data. The novelty of this paper is to investigate the most important thermophysical properties of ethylene glycol solutions in low temperatures. In this study a different approach was made and solutions having a specific freezing point temperature (between -5 and -50 ºC) rather than specific concentration were investigates in temperature ranges applicable for different cooling applications. The concentrations giving a certain freezing point temperature seemed to deviate in some cases with 1–2 wt-% between different sources. Nevertheless, the density results were in rather good agreement with all reference data. The viscosity results were lower by up to ±10% compared to reference values. Additionally, the obtained experimental results for thermal conductivity were higher by up to 12% compared to ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) data. The specific heat capacity results were higher by up to 14.6% and 5.4% than current reference data. There is a high probability that the current ASHRAE data for specific heat are actually indirectly calculated values from thermal conductivity data and not validated using differential scanning calorimetry techniques.

This paper investigates ellipsoid-shaped macro-encapsulated phase change material (PCM) on a component scale. The selected PCM is a paraffin-based commercial material, namely ATP60; differential scanning calorimetry and transient plane source method are used to measure ATP60's thermo-physical properties. A 0.382 m(3) latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES) component has been built and experimentally characterized. The temperature measurement results indicate that a thermocline was retained in the packed bed region during charging/discharging processes. The experimental characterization shows that increasing the temperature difference between the heat transfer fluid (HTF) inlet temperature and phase-change temperature by 20 K can shorten the completion time of discharge by 65%, and increasing HTF inlet flowrate from 0.15 m(3)/h (Re = 77) to 0.5 m(3)/h (Re = 256) can shorten the completion time of charge by 51%. Furthermore, a one-dimensional packed bed model using source-based enthalpy method was developed and validated by comparison to experimental results, showing discrepancies in the accumulated storage capacity within 6.6% between simulation and experiment when the Reynolds number of the HTF inlet flow ranges between 90 and 922. Compared with a conventional capsule shaped in 69-mm-diameter and 750-mm-long cylinders, the ellipsoidal capsule shows 60% less completion time of discharge but 23% lower storage capacity. Overall, this work demonstrates a combined experimental and numerical characterization approach for applying novel macro-encapsulated PCM geometries for heating-oriented LHTES.

Reliable knowledge of phase change materials (PCM) thermo-physical properties is essential to model and design latent thermal energy storage (LTES) systems. This study aims to conduct a methodological measurement of thermo-physical properties, including latent enthalpy, isobaric specific heat, thermal conductivity and dynamic viscosity, of two n-alkanes, n-octadecane and n-eicosane. The enthalpy and isobaric specific heat of the materials are measured via differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) technique, using a pDSC evo7 from Setaram Instrumentation with a sample mass of 628.4 mg. The influence of the scanning rates, varying from 0.5 K/min to 0.025 K/min, in dynamic continuous mode within temperature range of 10-65 degrees C is investigated. The thermal conductivity and the dynamic viscosity are measured via Hot Disk TPS-2500S instrument and Brookfield rotational viscometer, respectively, up to 70 degrees C. The thermal analysis results via the pDSC show that the isothermal condition can be approached at a very low scanning rate, however at the cost of a higher noise level. A trade-off is observed for n-octadecane, achieving the lowest deviation of 0.7% in latent heat measurement at 0.05 K/min, as compared to the American Petroleum Table values. For n-eicosane, the lowest deviation of 1.2% is seen at the lowest scanning rate of 0.025 K/min. The thermal conductivity measured values show good agreements with a number of documented literature studies in the solid phase, within deviations of 2%. Larger deviations of 5-16% are found for the measurement in the liquid phase. The viscosity values also show a good agreement with the literature values with maximum deviations of 2.9% and 6.3%, with respect to the values of American Petroleum Tables, for n-octadecane and n-eicosane, respectively. The good agreements achieved in measurements establish the reliable thermo-physical properties contributing to the future simulations and designs. 

Three-dimensional (3D) printing, known as additive manufacturing, provides new opportunities for the design and fabrication of highly efficient industrial components. Given the widespread use of this technique by industries, 3D printing is no longer limited to building prototypes. Instead, small-to-medium scale production units focus on reducing the cost associated with each part. Among the various industrial components that can be developed with this manufacturing technology are heat transfer components such as heat exchangers. To this end, this study investigated the heat transfer characteristics of minichannel-based heat exchangers embedded with longitudinal vortex generators, both experimentally and numerically. Three enhanced prototypes with different vortex generator design parameters and a smooth channel as a reference case were printed with an aluminum alloy (AlSi10Mg) using direct metal laser sintering (DMLS). The rectangular minichannel had a hydraulic diameter of 2.86 mm. Distilled water was used as the test fluid, and the Reynolds number varied from 170 to 1380 (i.e., laminar flow). Prototypes were tested under two different constant heat fluxes of 15 kW m(-2) and 30 k m(-2). The experimental results were verified with a commercial simulation tool, Comsol Multiphysics (R), using the 3D conjugate heat transfer model. In the case of the smooth channel, the experimental results were also compared with well-known correlations in the field. The results showed that 95% and 79% of the experimental data were within 10% of the numerical simulation results and the values from the existing correlations, respectively. For the channel enhanced with the vortex generators, the numerical predictions agreed well with the experimental results. It was determined that the vortex generators can enhance the convective heat transfer up to three times with the designed parameter. The findings from this research underline the potential of additive manufacturing in the development of more sophisticated minichannel heat exchangers.

Potassium formate and potassium acetate, as well as their blends are known as environmentally friendly secondary fluids with good thermophysical properties. The aim of this work was to investigate properties of cesium formate, cesium acetate and ammonium acetate solutions. Results showed that various alkali metal ions such as potassium, sodium, cesium or ammonium are affecting the freezing point, thermal conductivity, viscosity and specific heat capacity in different ways. Among examined salts, ammonium formate showed the best performance by giving the highest specific heat capacity and highest thermal conductivity and the lowest dynamic viscosity compared to potassium formate and other salts. Cesium formate solutions had the lowest viscosity among all tested salts. This study shows that both cesium formate and sodium formate could be used as different additives to enhance different properties of potassium formate and potassium acetate secondary based fluids.

This study investigates the thermal performance of laminar single-phase flow in an additively manufactured minichannel heat exchanger both experimentally and numerically. Distilled water was employed as the working fluid, and the minichannel heat exchanger was made from aluminum alloy (AlSi 1 0Mg) through direct metal laser sintering (DMLS). The minichannel was designed with a hydraulic diameter of 2.86 mm. The Reynolds number ranged from 175 to 1360, and the heat exchanger was tested under two different heat fluxes of 1.5 kWm(-2) and 3 kWm(-2). A detailed experiment was conducted to obtain the thermal properties of AlSi10Mg. Furthermore, the heat transfer characteristics of the minichannel heat exchanger was analyzed numerically by solving a three-dimensional conjugate heat transfer using the COMSOL Multiphysics to verify the experimental results. The experimental results were also compared to widely accepted correlations in literature. It is found that 95% and 79% of the experimental data are within 10% range of both the simulation results and the values from the existing correlations, respectively. Hence, the good agreement found between the experimental and simulation results highlights the possibility of the DMLS technique as a promising method for manufacturing future multiport minichannel heat exchangers.

This work presents and discusses a detailed thermal conductivity assessment of erythritol, xylitol, and their blends: 25 mol% erythritol and 80 mol% erythritol using the transient plane source (TPS) method with a Hot Disk Thermal Constants Analyzer TPS‐2500S. Thereby, the thermal conductivities of xylitol, 25 mol% erythritol, 80 mol% erythritol, and erythritol were here found for respectively in the solid state to be 0.373, 0.394, 0.535, and 0.589 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹ and in the liquid state to be 0.433, 0.402, 0.363, and 0.321 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹. These obtained results are comprehensively and critically analyzed as compared to available literature data on the same materials, in the phase change materials (PCMs) design context. This study clearly indicates that these thermal conductivity data in literature have considerable discrepancies between the literature sources and as compared to the data obtained in the present investigation. Primary reasons for these disparities are identified here as the lack of sufficiently transparent and repeatable data and procedure reporting, and relevant standards in this context. To exemplify the significance of such transparent and repeatable data reporting in thermal conductivity evaluations in the PCM design context, here focused on the TPS method, a comprehensive measurement validation is discussed along various residual plots obtained for varying input parameters (ie, the heating power and time). Clearly, the variations in the input parameters give rise to various thermal conductivity results, where choosing the most coherent result requires a sequence of efforts per material, because there are no universally valid conditions. Transparent and repeatable data and procedure reporting are the key to achieve comparable thermal conductivity results, which are essential for the correct design of thermal energy storage systems using PCMs.

This work presents and discusses a detailed thermal conductivity assessment of erythritol, xylitol and their blends: 25 mol% erythritol and 80 mol% erythritol using the Transient Plane Source (TPS) method with a Hot Disk Thermal Constants Analyzer TPS-2500S. Their thermal conductivities were here found to be respectively: 0.59; 0.37; 0.39 and 0.54 W/(m·K) in the solid state, and to be 0.32; 0.43; 0.40 and 0.36 W/(m·K) in the liquid state. These obtained results are comprehensively and critically analyzed as compared to available literature data on the same materials, in the phase change materials (PCMs) design context. This study clearly indicates that the literature has considerable discrepancies among their presented thermal conductivities, and also as compared to the values found through the present investigation. Primary reason for these disparities are identified here as the lack of sufficiently transparent and repeatable data and procedure reporting, and relevant standards in this context. To exemplify the significance of such transparent and repeatable data reporting in thermal conductivity evaluations in the PCM design context, here focused on the TPS method, a comprehensive measurement validation is discussed along various residual plots obtained for varying input parameters (i.e., the heating power and time). Clearly, the variations in the input parameters give rise to various thermal conductivity results, where choosing the most coherent result requires a sequence of efforts per material, but there are no universally valid conditions. Transparent and repeatable data and procedure reporting is the key to achieve comparable thermal conductivity results, which are essential for the correct design of thermal energy storage systems using PCMs.

Potassium organic salts like formates and acetates are known as environmentally friendly secondary fluids. The most important advantages of salts compared to aqueous solutions of alcohols and glycols are good thermophysical properties, low toxicity and non-flammability. The purpose of this work is to investigate properties of different formate salt based secondary fluids like: lithium formate, ammonium formate and sodium formate at low temperatures in order to propose new blends of formate salts that could be used as secondary fluids for low temperature applications. Studies showed that different alkali metal ions like sodium, lithium or ammonium are affecting the solubility level, freezing point, thermal conductivity, dynamic viscosity and specific heat capacity in different way. Among examined formate salts, ammonium formate showed the best performance by giving the lowest freezing point as well as the highest specific heat capacity and highest thermal conductivity and similar dynamic viscosity. Lithium formate salts had the highest dynamic viscosity among all samples and despite high specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity values these salts cannot be recommended for low temperature applications. 30 wt-% sodium formate and 36 wt-% lithium formate were recrystallizing at lower temperatures than 0 degrees C when fast cooling rate was applied. Thus, the possible application for these salts is rather limited to higher temperatures only. As seen, different type of cation group in the formate salt can result in different properties, thus, further studies to investigate ammonium formate as well as different acetate salts are recommended.