Thermo-physical Properties Measurements of an Insulating Material Extracted from Different Date Palm Trees

Abstract

During the last few decades, natural materials appear as a viable solution to current environmental problems and have been of interest to industry and researchers. The aim of this paper is to analyze the thermo-physical properties of a natural material extracted from three varieties of local date palm waste, called petiole, namely Boufeggous, Hafsa and Sair from Tinghir oasis, southern Morocco. A Transient Plane Source (TPS) method was used to measure the thermal conductivity and diffusivity of the proposed materials at different temperatures (40 °C, 60 °C, 80 °C, 100 °C, and 120 °C). The thermo-physical properties, according to the orientation of the fibers at ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure, have been also conducted and analyzed. Furthermore, a scanning microscopy (SEM) analysis of the samples was conducted to characterize the palm microstructure. The results reveal low values of thermal conductivity which were about 0.070 W/m.K. The microstructure analysis indicate that the proposed material is a highly porous and satisfies the thermal requirements of an insulating material. It worth to mention that this material will be used as insulation for a solar box cooker to reduce heat losses and enhance its performance.

Experimental Investigation on Thermal Conductivity and Thermal Diffusivity of Water-Agar Gel from Room Temperature to –60℃

“…For this reason, the purpose of this work was to investigate the temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity, and thermal diffusivity of water-agar gel samples from room temperature down to −60℃. The experiments were carried out using the transient plane source method, which is commonly applied to measure the thermal conductivity of liquids, foams and solids in the range 0.1 ÷ 100 Wm -1 K -1 [11][12][13].…”