Study of thermal performance and melting behaviour of a novel paraffin wax-carbon quantum Dots PCMs

Thermal energy storage with phase change materials (PCMs) is emerging as a key solution in addressing the global energy crisis, driving innovation in energy storage and management systems. This work numerically investigates the thermal performance and melting behavior of a novel composite PCM composed of paraffin wax (PW) dispersed with different weight percentages of carbon quantum dots (CQDs) in order to validate the experimental results. Latent heat curves for the prepared composite PCMs were generated numerically using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), with the input values provided from experiments and they seem to support the pattern of the experimental curves. The temperature profile and melting properties of the PCMs have also been studied. Melting temperatures of the composites indicated a maximum 5.8% discrepancy between the experimental and numerical analysis. The melting times of composites were longer than those of PW, indicating a delayed yet steady state absorption of heat during melting and improved latent heat.