Effective thermal conductivity and phase change properties of paraffin wax-based
nanocomposites with multi-walled carbon nanotubes are experimentally investigated in this paper.
It has been observed that the thermal conductivity enhancement achieved by a small amount of
nanotubes is much higher than that predicted by theoretical models. However, the most striking
results obtained concern the phase change behavior of the composites. Indeed, a significant rise of
the latent heat of the composite compared to that of the paraffin wax has been observed.
Moreover, the latent heat increases linearly with the amount of nanotubes added. Several factors
might account for these results and are discussed in the paper.