Heat transfer performance by forced convection of microencapsulated phase change material-latent functional thermal fluid flowing in a mini-channels heat sink

Conventional single-phase coolants have not been able to meet the high cooling requirements of electronic devices. Microencapsulated phase change material-latent functional thermal fluid (MPCM-LFTF), a solid–liquid two-phase cooling medium, has the dual advantages of active liquid cooling and passive phase change material cooling. However, it also increases the power consumption in the mini-channels, and the cooling efficiency of MPCM-LFTF in practical applications needs to be further studied. A new MPCM-LFTF was prepared by paraffin melamine resin MPCM and base fluid (absolute ethanol and deionized water) in this work. The heat transfer performance and hydrodynamic properties were investigated using the dimensionless wall temperature and friction factor, respectively. The efficiency factor was introduced to evaluate the cooling efficiency of MPCM-LFTF in mini-channels. The experimental results showed that the addition of MPCM increased the viscosity of MPCM-LFTF, which increased the friction factor. MPCM-LFTF with a mass fraction of 15 % had the best effect of temperature control and reduced the dimensionless wall temperature by 40.5 %. However, considering the characteristics of flow resistance and improved heat transfer, MPCM-LFTF with a mass fraction of 10 % had the highest cooling efficiency and the efficiency factor was 57.0 % higher than that of the base fluid.