Heat pipe heat exchangers could be employed as run-around coils in air conditioning systems for enhanced dehumidification and cooling. This article reviews some of the works conducted on the cooling and dehumidification aspects in various air conditioning systems. They have been proved to be effective in enhancing dehumidification and reducing air conditioning costs especially in hot and humid tropical countries.

The composite PCM was prepared by blending polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and myristic acid (MA) in different weight percentages. The MA and PMMA were selected as PCM and supporting material, respectively. As liquid MA may leak out during the phase transition, this study proposes the use of two coatings, namely a polyacrylic coating and a conformal coating to overcome the leakage problem. Both coatings were studied in terms of the leakage test, chemical compatibility, thermal stability, morphology, and reliability. No leakage was found in the PCMs with coatings compared to those without under the same proportions of MA/PMMA, thus justifying the use of coatings in the present study. The chemically compatibility was confirmed by FTIR spectra: the functional groups of PCMs were in accordance with those of coatings. DSC showed that the coatings did not significantly change the melting and freezing temperatures, however, they improved the thermal stability of composite PCMs as seen in TGA analysis. Furthermore, the composite PCMs demonstrated good thermal reliability after 1000 times thermal cycling. The latent heat of melting reduced by only 0.16% and 1.02% for the PCMs coated with conformal coating and polyacrylic coating, respectively. Therefore, the proposed coatings can be considered in preparing fatty acid/PMMA blends attributed to the good stability, compatibility and leakage prevention.

In this study, reduced graphene oxide (RGO)/polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) nanocomposites were prepared by employing in situ polymerization and solution blending methods. In terms of mechanical properties, RGO loading increased the Young’s modulus but decreased the elongation at break for RGO/PMMA nanocomposites. Tensile strength for solution blended RGO/PMMA nanocomposites increased after adding 0.5 wt % RGO, which was attributed to the good dispersion of RGO in the nanocomposites as evidenced from SEM and TEM. Solar energy conversion efficiency measurement results showed that the optimum concentration of RGO in the RGO/PMMA nanocomposites was found to be 1.0 wt % in order to achieve the maximum solar energy conversion efficiency of 25%. In the present study, the solution blended nanocomposites exhibited better overall properties than in situ polymerized nanocomposites owing to the better dispersion of RGO in solution blending. These findings would contribute to future work in search of higher conversion efficiency using nanocomposites.

A conventional natural convection flat plate solar collector needs to be placed at an incline to the horizontal and exposed to the sun in order for the solar hot water heater system to work. This arrangement is satisfactory where there is ample roof top space to locate the collector and storage tank. In a high-rise apartment, space is at a premium and also the hot-water recticulation requires long lengths of piping to distribute the hot water supply to the individual apartment. Most every modern high-rise apartment has a balcony facing outward from the wall structure. Balcony-type solar water heaters (SWHs) are catching up fast in China. Their performance would depend on collector and storage tank designs and sizes, weather conditions (solar radiation intensity and ambient temperature) and direction in which the balconies are facing. This article compares the outdoor performance of two SWH systems incorporating the evacuated glass U-tube solar collectors operating under natural convection. The panels were tested in both the vertical and inclined positions using the same tank but at different times of the year. It was found that the inclined panel system performed better than the system with the vertical panel system.

A heat pipe is a passive heat transfer device capable of transferring a large quantity of heat effectively and efficiently over a long distance and with a small temperature difference between the heat source and heat sink. A heat pipe consists of a metal pipe initially vacuumed and then filled with a small quantity of fluid inside. The pipe is separated into a heating (evaporator) section and a cooling (condenser) section by an adiabatic section. In a run-around-coil heating, ventilation and air conditioning system, a wrap-around heat pipe heat exchanger could be employed to increase dehumidification and to reduce cooling costs. The thermal performance of a thermosyphon is dependent upon type of fill liquid, fill ratio, power input, pipe inclination and pipe dimensions. The boiling and condensation processes that occur inside a thermosyphon are quite complex. During operation, dry-out, burn-out or boiling limit, entrainment or flooding limit and geysering occur. These phenomena would lead to non-uniform axial wall temperature distribution in the pipe, or worse still, ineffective operation. In order to have a better understanding of the internal heat transfer phenomena, a visual study using transparent glass tubes and high speed camera recording of the internal flow patterns would be most helpful. This paper reports on an experimental investigation conducted to visualise the flow patterns in straight and C-shape thermosyphons. The pictures recorded enabled the internal flow boiling and condensation pattern occurring inside a straight and a C-shape thermosyphon to be observed. The thermosyphons were fabricated from 10 mm O/D × 8 mm I/D × 300 mm long glass tubes and filled with water with fill ratios from 0.5 – 1.5. The evaporator sections of the thermosyphons were immersed into a hot water tank that was electrically heated from cold at ambient temperature till boiling. Cooling of the condenser section was achieved using a fan. Preliminary results showed that dry-out occurred earlier at lower evaporator temperatures with small fill ratios. Further investigations to determine saturation and thermosyphon wall temperatures with various fill liquids and at different fill ratios, inclinations and pipe sizes are necessary with a more sophisticated video recording system.