Medium temperature phase change materials thermal characterization by the t-history method and differential scanning calorimetry

Abstract

This paper presents a thermal characterization of salt mixtures applying the T-History Method and the Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) techniques. By using water as a standard substance, the original T-History method was developed to analyze materials with melting points under 100°C. This is the first research that proposes to replace water by glycerin to characterize medium melting temperature PCMs (140-220°C). Moreover, the DSC technique was used to validate and compare the results obtained with the T-history method for each mixture. For instance, the system compound of 40% KNO3 – 60% NaNO3 was studied, and the enthalpy of fusion determined by THM and DSC differs by 2.1% between each method. The results given by the two methods for all mixtures showed that both techniques are complementary and present satisfactory agreement with the specialized literature.