Graphene-Modified Heat-Accumulating Materials and Aspects of their Application in Thermotherapy and Biotechnologies

Abstract

The present work aims at implementing heat accumulators in real technological processes and poses a problem of practical importance.Heat accumulators have been the subject of laboratory research for a long time. Several authors have obtained certain results while studying such devices, but only few of them have considered their introduction into the industrial practice. In this regard, the present research provides two directions for applying heat accumulators: thermotherapy and methane tanks.The need to stabilize temperature conditions is common to these processes. To achieve this goal, graphene-modified sodium acetate (thermal conductivity ≈5,000 W/(m K))was used herein as heat accumulator with controlled discharge mode (heat dissipation). The possibility of improving the stability of sodium acetate when introducing graphene thereinto was established. Besides,charge/discharge modes were investigated under the operating conditions of thermotherapy and methane tanks.