Numerical simulation on photo-thermal properties of double glazing unit filled with TiN-Al₂O₃ binary nanoparticles enhanced phase change material

Due to the importance role in building energy saving and poor thermal resistance of window unit, considering the widely application in energy storage of phase change material (PCM) and the superior enhancement on photo-thermal properties by binary nanoparticles, Al₂O₃-TiN binary nanoparticles are suspended into paraffin to consist enhanced phase changes material (NePCM) as the filler for double glazing unit to improve it photo-thermal performance. A numerical simulation method is built for investigating the effect of nanoparticles from binary NePCM on the photo-thermal performance of window unit including the volume fraction, particle size and mixing ratio of Al₂O₃-TiN nanoparticles. The results show that, ignoring the influences of fillers optical properties, the mainly affection for window unit is the thermal conductivity of samples. The influences of Al₂O₃: TiN ratios are slightly, however, the effect of nanoparticles concentration and diameter are obviously in comparison, under the same condition, the sample with 0.01% nanoparticles volume fraction gives the largest energy consumption Δq of 0.23% by the comparison with 10% concentration and the sample with 5 nm diameter gives the largest Δq of 0.73% compared with 10 nm. Thus, the Al₂O₃-TiN binary NePCM with 1% concentration, 5 nm particle size and 9:1 of Al₂O₃: TiN is the most suitable configuration scheme as the filler for improving photo-thermal performance of double glazing unit.