Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 391–398

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

Design and evaluation of a heat exchanger that uses paraffin wax

and recycled materials as solar energy accumulator
Alejandro Reyes a,⇑, Daniela Negrete a, Andrea Mahn a, Francisco Sepúlveda b
a
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Santiago of Chile, Av. L. B. O’Higgins 3363, Santiago, Chile
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Santiago of Chile, Av. L. B. O’Higgins 3363, Santiago, Chile

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Soft drink cans filled with paraffin wax mixed with 5% w/w aluminum wool, obtained from disposable
Received 28 April 2014 cans, doubled the thermal conductivity of cans filled only with paraffin wax. Thermal conductivity of
Accepted 15 August 2014 the systems was determined by two ways: directly using a thermal conductivimeter, and indirectly based
Available online 16 September 2014
on temperature profiles and on the analytical solution of a cylinder.
We designed, built and evaluated a heat exchanger for solar energy accumulation, composed by 48 dis-
Keywords: posable soft drink cans filled with a total of 9.5 kg of paraffin wax mixed with 5% w/w aluminum wool. In
Thermal conductivity
sunny days, the wax melted completely in 3 h. The accumulated energy of 3000 kJ, allowed increasing the
Solar energy stored
Paraffin wax
temperature of 3.5 m3/h air flow rate from 20 to 40 °C during a period of 2 h. This application will allow
Recycled cans extending the use of solar energy in drying processes or could be used as household calefaction system.
The progress of the phase change front in time during the energy discharge period was simulated with
COMSOL, whereas the effect of the number of cans and thermal conductivity of the paraffin wax on the air
temperature increase was simulated with MATLAB.
Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction number of low-cost materials available with this purpose. How-

ever these materials have the lowest heat storage capacity, thus
The energy required in different processes usually comes from requiring large equipment [4]. The storage of latent heat by means
hydrocarbons, whose price is raising continuously. Besides the of phase change materials (PCM), is particularly attractive since
use of fossil fuels has a negative impact on the environment PCM provide a high-energy storage density and have the capacity
because of contaminant emissions, such as CO2 [1]. to store energy at a constant temperature, which is the tempera-
On the other hand, food and beverages packaging produce pol- ture that corresponds to the phase transition temperature of the
lution problems, since the garbage ultimately is buried in a landfill PCM [5–9]. Nevertheless the use of PCM demands consideration
or burned, and never used again. For example, in 2012, around of price and other indirect costs, together with the need of improv-
300 billion of aluminum disposable cans for soft drinks were man- ing some thermo physical properties of PCM. Additionally, the heat
ufactures, and the production is augmenting at a 3% annual rate. transfer rate from the PCM must be improved to facilitate the
Cans recycling reduce the trash and turn them into new products. energy withdrawal by the fluid [9–11].
In this way, cans recycling allows energy savings, reduction of Kenisarin and Mahkamov [13], Dutil et al. [9], and Tigui et al.
greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global climate change, [12], mention the need of improving performances sufficiently to
and also helps to create new jobs. justify costs related to additional systems and/or controls needed.
Solar energy appears attractive as a non conventional and non PCMs can be classified into three categories: (1) organic materi-
polluting alternative. However, the daily and seasonal fluctuations als such as paraffin; (2) inorganic materials, such salt hydrates and
in the irradiation level are a drawback [2]. Thermal energy can be metallic materials; and (3) eutectic materials, containing various
stored as a change in internal energy of a material as either sensi- combinations of inorganic and organic materials. Inorganic com-
ble heat, latent heat or thermal-chemical heat [3]. The storage of pounds have a high latent heat per volume unit and high thermal
sensible heat is the most popular technology, and there are a large conductivity. Additionally they are non-flammable and have low in
cost in comparison to organic compounds. However, they are cor-
rosive to most metals and are chemically unstable, which can
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +56 02 27181819.
affect their phase change properties [2].
E-mail address: alejandro.reyes@usach.cl (A. Reyes).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2014.08.032
0196-8904/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
392 A. Reyes et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 391–398

Nomenclature

A heat exchanger exposed area (m2) Greek letters

Bi Biot number a thermal diffusivity (m2/s)
C specific heat (Joule/kg°K) e porosity of aluminum wool bed
k effective thermal conductivity (W/mK) u inclination angle of the heat exchanger
Fo Fourier number (Fo = a t/R2) qp density of dry solids (kg/m3)
J0 Bessel function ki first root of transcendental eigenconditions
J1 Bessel function k latent heat of fusion (Joule/kg)
M paraffin wax mass (kg) g efficiency
R cans radius (m) 1 ambient conditions
r* dimensionless radio (r/R)
T drying air temperature (°C)
t time (s)
v air velocity, inside of the chamber (m/s)
w air flow mass (kg/s)

Most organic PCMs are non-corrosive and chemically stable, are (Fig. 1). Once cut, the strips acquired a curly shape. The packing
compatible with most building materials and have a high latent conformed by these strips is the aluminum wool.
heat per weight unit and low vapor pressure [2,14]. Although they
show low thermal conductivity, volume changes during melting 2.2. Wax blocks
and solidification, and also flammability [16], a serious drawback
of this material. One of the most popular organic PCM is paraffin We built pure paraffin wax blocks and also wax blocks contain-
wax, since it is inexpensive and exhibits moderate thermal storage ing 5% w/w (equivalent to 1.5% v/v) aluminum wool. The blocks
densities and a wide range of melting temperatures depending on size was 10 cm  5 cm  3 cm. Thermal conductivity of the blocks
its composition [14,15]. described above was determined in triplicate with a thermal con-
Several methods to enhance heat transfer processes in a latent ductivimeter (CT Metre) exhibiting a 5% precision and a 2% repeat-
heat thermal storage unit have been proposed, such as the use of ability (Fig. 2).
finned surface embedded into the heat storage medium and the We used commercial paraffin wax whose properties are given
introduction of matrix structures with a high heat conductivity in Table 1.
into the heat storage medium (or impregnation of heat storage
medium into a porous matrix structure) [2,10,13,17–19]. Never- 2.3. Thermal conductivity of filled cans
theless, the potential use of these alternatives is somewhat limited
owing to their high costs. We studied the thermal behavior of pure paraffin wax as well as
Mettawee and Assassa [20] reported a method of improving the wax mixed with 3% and 5% w/w aluminum wool contained in the
thermal conductivity of paraffin wax by embedding aluminum cans (6.72 cm diameter and 12 cm height). The phase transition
80 lm particles in it. The mass ratio of aluminum particles to from solid to liquid and from liquid to solid, including the neces-
wax used in the experimental work was 0.5. They concluded that sary heating periods from ambient temperature to 80 °C, was
the charging time of energy decreased by 60% for composite than measured.
pure paraffin wax. The mean daily efficiency for paraffin wax fluc- Three cans were electrically isolated by coating them externally
tuated between 32% and 54.8%; while it varied from 82% to 94% for with Teflon tape. Then the can was wrapped with an electric resis-
the aluminum–wax composite material. tance of 19.2 W. The resistances were then thermally isolated, to
Another aspect to consider, in addition to the low conductivity
of organic PCM, is to increase the heat transfer rate from the PCM
to the surrounding fluid. This aspect enhances the thermal effi-
ciency during the energy discharge process.
In a first stage of this work we determined the thermal conduc-
tivity of pure wax blocks and blocks containing wax plus 5% w/w
aluminum wool in a thermal conductivimeter. Then, in a second
stage, the thermal conductivity of aluminum cans filled with pure
wax and wax plus 5% w/w aluminum wool was estimated consid-
ering that the cans had a geometry similar to an infinite cylinder.
Finally, we designed and built a heat exchanger that contains par-
affin wax mixed with aluminum wool in cans that was used as a
solar energy accumulator.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Aluminum wool

Aluminum wool was obtained by opening vertically 350 mL soft

drink cans (obtaining a 10 cm  20 cm sheet) and then cutting
them in strips (0.4 cm wide and 10 cm length) using a paper-cutter Fig. 1. Obtainment of aluminum strips.
 A. Reyes et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 391–398 393

Fig. 3. Equipment for determination of temperature profiles inside a can.

Table 2
Thermal conductivity of solid paraffin wax and mixtures.

Sample Aluminum k (W/mK)

content (%w/w)
Section I (Using CT-METRE) 1 0 0.50 ± 0.02
Fig. 2. Thermal conductivimeter (CT METRE).
2 5 0.98 ± 0.07
Section II (Estimated from 1 0 0.48 ± 0.05
Table 1 temperature profiles) 2 3 0.73 ± 0.08
Properties of paraffin wax. 4 5 1.05 ± 0.08

Property Paraffin wax

Fusion temperature (°C) 56–58
Fusion heat (kJ/kg) 200–220
Solid Liquid
Thermal conductivity (W/m °C) 0.4 0.15
Density (kg/m3) 861 778

avoid heat release to the ambient. Preliminary experiences showed

that there is no axial temperature difference, and therefore the
temperature profiles were registered in two radial positions (1.5
and 2.7 cm from the center). Fig. 3 shows the equipment, which
was designed and built in out laboratory. The temperature profiles
were registered with the software LabView Signal Express
(National Instruments), and the data was exported to Microsoft
Excel.
We performed heating experiments and also cooling experi-
ments (natural convection and forced convection at 1.6 m/s air
flow rate and 20 °C).

Fig. 4. Temperature profiles for solid pure paraffin wax and solid paraffin mixed
3. Results and discussion
with 5% aluminum, during cooling by natural convection.

3.1. Thermal conductivity

Section I of Table 2 shows thermal conductivity values of pure aluminum gave values almost 100% higher than those obtained
wax blocks and wax mixed with 5% w/w aluminum wool, mea- for pure wax. The higher dispersion of the values for the wax–
sured with the thermal conductivimeter. The mixture of wax and aluminum mixture is due to the heterogeneity of the mixture.

(a) t = 0 (b) t = 45 [min] (c) t= 55 [min] (d) t= 63 [min]

Fig. 5. Photographic sequence of the melting process of wax plus 5% aluminum contained in a can.
394 A. Reyes et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 391–398

Fig. 7. Side view of the heat exchanger.

Fig. 6. Upper view of the heat exchanger.

For an infinite cylinder geometry there is an analytical solution

of the Fourier equation, valid for heating and cooling of solids,
given by Eq. (1) [21].

T  T1 2  J 1 ðk1 Þ 2
h¼ ¼  ek1 Fo  J 0 ðr   k1 Þ ð1Þ
T i  T 1 k1  ½J 20 ðk1 Þ þ J 21 ðk1 Þ

In Eq. (1), the thermal conductivity (k) is implicitly included in

the Fourier number (Fo). The thermal conductivity was estimated
by minimizing the mean squared error between experimental tem-
peratures and analytical solution of Eq. (1), in the cooling period.
Section II of Table 2 shows thermal conductivity of pure and
mixed solid wax contained in the cans. These values are of similar
magnitude than those obtained with the direct method (thermal
conductivimeter).
Fig. 4 shows the experimental temperature profiles for two sit- Fig. 8. Actual exchanger before installing the glass cover, without aluminum wool.
uations (pure wax and wax plus 5% aluminum) and the adjustment
of Eq. (1) for the zone for cooling of the solid. The temperatures
come from a thermocouple located at 3.72 cm from the center of
the can. The results show that cooling of the solidified wax begins
at 70 min in the case of wax – aluminum mixture, and at 140 min
for pure wax. Since cooling conditions were similar in both cases,
the most suitable explanation to this behavior is the increase of
the thermal conductivity owing to the incorporation of aluminum
strips. Additionally, dotted lines in both cases represent the adjust-
ment of Eq. (1), whose parameter (thermal conductivity, k) is
informed in Table 2.
Fig. 5 shows a photographic sequence of the melting process of
wax plus 5% aluminum contained in a can. The heat required for
melting came from the electric resistance that wraps the can
(19.2 W). It is clear that at 45 min a solid core of about 4 cm diam-
eter appears, surrounded by melt wax. From 63 min onwards all
the wax is in liquid phase.

3.2. Design of the heat exchanger as solar energy accumulator

Considering the increase of thermal conductivity of paraffin

wax when aluminum wool was incorporated, we decided to design
a heat exchanger using disposable soft drink cans that contained
0.20 kg of paraffin wax with 5% aluminum wool. A higher alumi-
num percentage would increase even more the thermal conductiv-
ity of the mixture, at expense of the volume available of locating
the wax. Accordingly, the aluminum percentage used in this study
was considered adequate.
The upper cover of each aluminum can was removed and the
outer surface of the cans was painted black in order to facilitate Fig. 9. Actual exchanger before installing the glass cover, with 0.50 kg of aluminum
solar radiation absorption. The exchanger contained a total of 48 wool.
 A. Reyes et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 391–398 395

Fig. 11. Air temperature increase when passing through the heat exchanger (air
flow rate = 35 m3/h).

Fig. 10. Complete heat exchanger.

cans with a total of 9.5 kg paraffin wax. Cans were located perpen-
dicular to the air flow, resulting in 12 rows of 4 cans each (Figs. 6
and 7). Between each row there was a 2 cm separation. In order to Fig. 12. Evolution of the wax temperature, ambient temperature, and solar
increase the solar energy capture, in the upper face we located a radiation (December 12th 2013) in the exchanger without external aluminum wool.
6 mm thickness glass, and in the bottom and sides a 5 cm layer
of mineral wool was located.
Thus, the accumulator had 1.2 m length, 0.54 m width and Table 3
Efficiency of the heat exchanger, with and without aluminum wool between the cans,
0.12 m height. Fig. 7 shows a lateral view of the exchanger, and in the charge and discharge stages.
Fig. 8 show the actual exchanger before installing the glass cover,
without aluminum wool and Fig. 9 with 0.50 kg of aluminum wool Stage Efficiency (%)

(obtained from 100 aluminum cans). Incorporating aluminum Without external aluminum wool Charge 46.8
wool results in a highly porous bed, with a lower effect on pressure Discharge 64.4

drop when the air passes through the exchanger. Fig. 10 shows the With external aluminum wool Charge 48.9
complete heat exchanger, which had a cost of approximately US$ Discharge 80.0

95 (without considering instrumentation and manpower).

The accumulated solar energy was employed to heat a 35 m3/h
air flow, which was sucked out by a 28 Watt air extractor. Fig. 11
shows that initially (t = 0) the air temperature increased in 27 °C
above the ambient temperature. After 2 h, this increment was
18 °C. In order to increase the heat transfer rate aluminum wool
(0.50 kg) was located between the cans in the exchanger, as shown
in Fig. 9. The aluminum wool has porosity equal to 0.99 (calculated
with Eq. (2)). In this way, the heat transfer area increased, mimick-
ing the effect of fins. This arrangement allowed increasing the ini-
tial air temperature in 35 °C. Overall, with this implementation, we
used a total of 250 disposable soft drink cans.

Volume of aluminum strips in can

ð1  porosityÞ ¼ ð2Þ
Volume of aluminum strips þ wax volume
Preliminary runs showed that wax temperature, measured in Fig. 13. Evolution of the wax temperature, ambient temperature, and solar
the center of the cans, fluctuated between 2 and 7 °C along the radiation (January 20th 2014) in the exchanger with 0.5 kg external aluminum
exchanger, because the air increases its temperature as it moves wool.
along the exchanger. We considered that the temperature of the
central can was representative of the whole bed. Figs. 12 and 13
show the evolution of temperature of the representative paraffin ditions. Figs. 12 and 13 show the temperature and radiation pro-
can during the energy charge period, as well as solar radiation files in the exchanger without aluminum wool surrounding the
and ambient temperature, for two days with different climate con- cans (Fig. 12) and with 0.50 kg aluminum wool (Fig. 13). During
396 A. Reyes et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 391–398

t= 0 [min] t= 60 [min] t=90 [min] t=105 [min]

t=120 [min] t=150 [min] t= 180 [min] t= 200 [min]

Fig. 14. Progress of the phase change front in time during the energy discharge period (Gray zones represent liquid phase and white zones are solid phase).

Fig. 15. Simulation of the outlet air temperature at different thermal conductivities of the wax. The air conditions were 35 m3/h air flow, initially at 30 °C, in the prototype
exchanger composed by 12 rows of four cans each.

the energy charge process, incorporating aluminum wool favors (sensible heat + latent heat) and the heat provided by solar radia-
the energy inlet since it increases the exposed surface, although tion, given by Eqs. (3) and (4).
it avoids the solar radiation to reach the bottom of the cans.
In Figs. 12 and 13, initially it is observed the heating of the wax M wax ½C waxðliqÞ ðT o  T f Þ þ kfusion þ C waxðsolÞ ðT f  T end Þ
gcharge ¼ 100 ð3Þ
occurs in 70–80 min, and after that begins the fusion of the wax QR
Z t
(57 °C), which took approximately 130 min in the exchanger with-
Q R ¼ A  cos ðuÞ  R dt ð4Þ
out aluminum wool and about 100 min in the exchanger with alu- 0
minum wool. With aluminum wool the fusion period was shorter,
During the energy discharge stage, the thermal efficiency was
despite solar radiation was lower in that particular day. Finally, the
defined as the ratio between the sensible heat absorbed by the
wax completes phase change transition and temperature again
air that passed through the exchanger and the heat transferred
increases, reaching above 70 °C.
by the wax (sensible heat + latent heat) (Eq. (5))

3.3. Thermal efficiency wair  C air ðT o  T f Þ

gdescharge ¼ 100
Mwax ½C waxðliqÞ ðT o  T f Þ þ kfusion þ C waxðsolÞ ðT f  T end Þ
Thermal efficiency (gcharge) during the energy charge stage was
ð5Þ
defined as the fraction of the heat absorbed by paraffin wax
 A. Reyes et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 391–398 397

Fig. 16. Simulation of the temperature profile as a function of the number of cans in the exchanger, for a 35 m3/h air flow that passes through a heat exchanger, using wax of
thermal conductivity equal to 1 W/m °C.

Table 3 compares the efficiency of the heat exchanger, with and By means of MATLAB 2011b the effect of some parameters and
without aluminum wool between the cans, in the charge and dis- number of cans on air temperature was analyzed. Fig. 15 shows the
charge stages. The effect of the external aluminum wool is espe- effect of thermal conductivity of paraffin wax in the prototype
cially significant during discharge, since aluminum increased the exchanger that consisted in twelve rows of 4 cans each. The
heat transfer area. increase in thermal conductivity produced an increase in the outlet
air temperature, since thermal resistance diminishes, producing a
higher energy is transferred to the air. This effect was more noto-
3.4. Simulation of solidification of paraffin wax
rious in the first increments of thermal conductivity (0.5–1.0 W/
m °C). As a consequence, the air kept at 57 °C for a longer period.
The process of energy discharge (wax solidification) was simu-
Fig. 16 shows a simulation of the temperature profile as a func-
lated by using the software Multiphysics Modeling and Simulation
tion of the number of cans in the exchanger, i.e. the length of the
Software program (COMSOL), in two dimensions (2D).
exchanger. As expected, a longer exchanger resulted in higher air
The model considered that the can has a 3.36 cm radius,
temperature, observing that until 100 min the air kept the maxi-
without axial temperature profiles. We considered that the
mum temperature (57 °C).
wax–aluminum mixture had an effective thermal conductivity of
The convective heat transferred from outside the cans to the cir-
1.05 W/mK, an initial temperature of 80 °C, an external convective
culating air depends on the exposed surface area and the heat
coefficient of 25 Watt/m2 °C, and an average air temperature of
transfer coefficient, which in turn depends on the air thermo-phys-
30 °C. Fig. 14 shows that at 60 min a solid ring with a liquid core is
ical properties and its flow rate. Fig. 17 shows the temperature
formed, which gradually diminishes until the minute 200, when it
increase as a function of the number of cans and the heat transfer
disappears. This behavior agrees with experimental results
coefficient. This last value was experimentally increased in an
(Fig. 11).

Fig. 17. Simulation of the air temperature increase as a function of the number of cans and the heat transfer coefficient, at different times, using wax of thermal conductivity
equal to 1 W/m °C.
398 A. Reyes et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 391–398

indirect way by increasing the exposed surface through the incor- [2] Farid M, Khudhair A, Razack S, Al-Hallaj S. A review on phase change
energy storage: materials and applications. Energy Convers Manage 2004;45:
poration of aluminum wool. As expected, as the heat transfer coef-
1597–615.
ficient increases (at the same air flow rate), the air temperature [3] Youssef Z, Delahaye A, Huang L, Trinquet F, Fournaison L, Pollerberg C, et al.
also increases as the air passes through the cans. State of the art on phase change material slurries. Energy Convers Manage
2013;65:120–32.
[4] Tian Y, Zhao CY. A review of solar collectors and thermal energy storage in
4. Conclusions solar thermal applications. Appl Energy 2013;104:538–53.
[5] Zalba B, Marin J, Cabeza L, Mehling H. Review on thermal energy storage with
phase change: materials, heat transfer analysis and applications. Appl Therm
The aluminum wool obtained from recycled beverage cans dou- Eng 2003;23:251–83.
bled the thermal conductivity of paraffin wax, as verified through [6] Sharma A, Tyagi V, Chen C, Buddhi D. Review on thermal energy storage with
phase change materials and applications. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 2009;13:
direct and indirect (using temperature profiles and the analytical 318–45.
solution for an infinite cylinder) measurements. Additionally, the [7] Zhang Y, Su Y, Zhu Y, Hu X. A general model for analyzing the thermal
aluminum wool surrounding the wax-filled cans facilitated the performance of the heat charging and discharging processes of latent heat
thermal energy storage systems. J Sol Energy Eng 2001;123(3):232–6.
withdrawal of the accumulated energy.
[8] Verma P, Varun, Singal S. Review of mathematical modeling on latent heat
With a total of 250 cans a solar energy accumulator heat thermal energy storage systems using phase-change material. Renew Sustain
exchanger was constructed, using paraffin wax mixed with 5% alu- Energy Rev 2008;12:999–1031.
minum wool (equivalent to 1.5% v/v), which could accumulate [9] Dutil Y, Rousse D, Salah N, Lassue S, Zalewski L. A review on phase-change
materials: mathematical modeling and simulations. Renew Sustain Energy Rev
3000 kJ. Thermal conductivity of the mixture could be augmented 2011;15:112–30.
by increasing the aluminum strips percentage, at expense of the [10] Velraj R, Seeniraj R, Hafner B, Faber C, Schwarzer K. Heat transfer enhancement
volume available of locating the wax. The complete heat exchanger in latent heat storage system. Sol Energy 1999;65:171–80.
[11] Nallusamy N, Sampath S, Velraj R. Experimental investigations on a combined
had an approximate cost of US$ 95, without considering instru- sensible and latent heat storage system integrated with constant/varying
mentation and manpower. (solar) heat resources. Renewable Energy 2007;32(7):1206–27.
The COMSOL software allowed an adequate representation of [12] Tigui A, Karkri M, Krupa I. Thermal conductivity and latent heat thermal
energy storage properties of LDPE/wax as a shape-stabilized composite phase
the wax cooling and solidification processes, while MATLAB per- change material. Energy Convers Manage 2014;77:586–96.
mitted the solution of the model to simulate adequately the effect [13] Kenisarin M, Mahkamov K. Solar energy storage using phase change materials.
of variations of thermal conductivity, heat transfer coefficient and Renew Sustain Energy Rev 2007;11:1913–65.
[14] Ehid R, Fleischer A. Development and characterization of paraffin-based shape
the number of cans, on the air temperature. stabilized energy storage materials. Energy Convers Manage 2012;53:84–91.
Finally, the exchanger could be scaled-up to a larger energy [15] Fan L, Khodadadi JM. Thermal conductivity enhancement of phase change
accumulation capacity. This heat exchanger will allow extending materials for thermal energy storage: a review. Renew Sustain Energy Rev
2011;15:24–46.
the use of solar energy in drying processes or could be used as
[16] Nkwetta D, Haghighat F. Thermal energy storage with phase change material-
household calefaction system. A state -of-the art review. Sustain Cities Soc 2014;10:87–100.
[17] Thapa S, Chukwu S, Khaliq A, Weiss L. Fabrication and analysis of small-scale
thermal energy storage with conductivity enhancement. Energy Convers
Acknowledgment Manage 2014;79:161–70.
[18] Chen K, Yu X, Tian C, Wang J. Preparation and characterization of form-stable
The authors wish to thank the financial support of project paraffin/polyurethane composites as phase change materials for thermal
energy storage. Energy Convers Manage 2014;77:13–21.
FONDECYT N° 1110101. [19] Mahmud A, Sopian K, Alghoul MA, Sohif M. Using a paraffin wax–aluminum
compound as a thermal storage material in a solar air heater. ARPN J Eng Appl
Sci 2009;4(10).
References [20] Mettawee E, Assassa G. Thermal conductivity enhancement in a latent heat
storage system. Sol Energy 2007;81:839–45.
[1] Reyes A, Mahn A, Huenulaf P. Drying of agro-products in a hybrid solar dryer [21] Crank J. The mathematics of diffusions. 2nd ed. London: Oxford University
for reducing electric energy consumption. In: Sixth nordic drying conference, Press; 1975.
June 2013, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2013.