The shrinking size and increasing power consumption of electronic products
also make their thermal management challenging. Poor thermal management
results in increased temperature of the electronic component, ultimately
leading to the failure of the element. Thermal management of electronic
devices is assisted by passive techniques such as heat sinks. Phase change
material-filled heat sinks attract industries, as they are compact and do
not require frequent maintenance. In this study, heat sinks with internal
surface modifications, i.e., engraving and grit blasting, are developed. The
heat sinks are provided with heat storage mediums like paraffin wax and
nanoparticles to analyse their effect on thermal management. This study
employed two different nanoparticles, i.e., silver titanium dioxide and
graphene. A simple heat sink without surface modification and a heat storage
medium was used as a reference. It was found that using graphene-mixed PCM
in the smooth heat sink increased the charging time by about 8%. Adding
graphene nanoparticles to the phase change material decreases the
discharging time by about 29 %. Grit-blasted heat sinks took the most time
to discharge, followed by base-engraved heat sinks. This is because the
internal surface roughened heat sinks stored more heat energy during the
charging process. Adding graphene nanoparticles to the PCM increases the
duty cycle by about 40 %. When used with paraffin wax, base engraved
heatsinks and grit-blasted heat sinks have increased the duty cycle by 11 %
and 36 %, respectively.