Design and construction of mesoporous silica/n-eicosane phase-change nanocomposites for supercooling depression and heat transfer enhancement

Huan Liu, Jinfei Niu, Xiaodong Wang and Dezhen Wu

Energy, 2019, vol. 188, issue C

Abstract: Traditional micro- or nanoencapsulation of phase change materials (PCMs) generally results in high supercooling and slow thermal response. Hereby, we designed and synthesized two types of meso-silica/n-eicosane phase-change nanocomposites in the forms of uniform nanospheres and core-shell structured nanocapsules through self-templating strategy. The meso-silica/n-eicosane nanospheres have a disordered worm-like mesopore nanostructure, whereas the meso-silica/n-eicosane nanocapsules show a 3D cubic cage-like mesoporous structure for the core and a solid silica layer for the shell. These two types of phase-change nanocomposites achieved superior thermal performance including a good thermal storage capability, high thermal stability, good shape stability and satisfactory phase-change reliability. Most of all, owing to the formation of specific hierarchical nanostructures, both of them achieved a significant enhancement in thermal conductivity and effective depression in supercooling. Compared to the conventional silica/n-eicosane microcapsules, these two types of phase-change nanocomposites exhibited a shorter heat-charging period due to good thermal conduction by their interconnecting mesopores silica matrix, but a longer heat-discharging period because of the internal narrow mesopores resulting in crystallization confinement of encapsulated n-eicosane. With low supercooling and rapid thermal response, the phase-change nanocomposites developed by this work exhibit a great potential for hi-tech applications in fast temperature regulation and precise thermal management.

Keywords: Phase-change nanocomposites; Mesoporous silica; Hierarchical nanostructures; Thermal energy storage/release; Supercooling degree; Heat transfer rate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:188:y:2019:i:c:s0360544219317700

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2019.116075

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