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Thermal properties of polyethylene glycol/carbon microsphere composite as a novel phase change material

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Abstract

Polyethylene glycol (PEG) as phase change materials has been extensively studied. However, it is difficult to uniformly disperse the PEG in the unmodified matrix material owing to the impregnation problem. It is therefore challenging to overcome the shortcoming of low thermal conductivity. In order to solve this problem, carbon microspheres (CMPs) prepared by the hydrothermal method is firstly proposed as the supporting matrix for preparation of PEG composite. The PEG/CMPs composite is prepared via a mutual diffusion methodology in a high-temperature environment. The test result shows the CMPs nano-material has rich oxygen-based functional groups and can be uniformly dispersed in the PEG phase. As the carbon content increases, the CMPs become gradually connected in the PEG/CMPs composite, which can result in a network with good thermal conductivity. Compared with the thermal conductivity of pure PEG, the thermal conductivity of the composite is increased by 65.07%. Owing to the existence of hydrogen bonds in the composite, the crystallinity fraction of the PEG is in the range of 102–105%. It means that the test result is higher than the theoretical value of latent heat for the composite. Finally, its cycling performance was measured. After 500 thermal cycles, the phase transition temperature of the composite remains almost constant, and the latent heat values of the melting and freezing decrease by 1.05 and 1.45%, respectively. The PEG/CMPs composite would be a promising material for thermal energy storage applications and can be used in various engineering disciplines.

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Abbreviations

T :

Temperature (°C)

T C :

Crystallization temperature (°C)

T C,P :

Peak temperature during crystallization process (°C)

T M :

Melting temperature (°C)

T M,P :

Peak temperature during melting process (°C)

∆T :

Supercooling between T M,P and T C,P (°C)

F c :

Crystallization fraction (%)

∆H :

Latent heat (J g−1)

Β :

Mass fraction of PEG in the composite (%)

K :

Thermal conductivity (W m−1 K−1)

α :

Thermal diffusivity (m2 s−1)

ρ :

Density (kg m−3)

C p :

Specific heat capacity (J kg−1 K−1)

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Program of Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51378426) and the Youth Science and Technology Innovation Team of Sichuan Province of Building Environment and Energy Efficiency (No. 2015TD0015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, 610031, Chengdu, People’s Republic of China

    Qinrong Sun, Yanping Yuan, Haiquan Zhang, Xiaoling Cao & Liangliang Sun

  2. School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, ChongQing University of Science and Technology, Chongqing, 401331, People’s Republic of China

    Qinrong Sun

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  1. Qinrong Sun
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  2. Yanping Yuan
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Correspondence to Yanping Yuan.

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Sun, Q., Yuan, Y., Zhang, H. et al. Thermal properties of polyethylene glycol/carbon microsphere composite as a novel phase change material. J Therm Anal Calorim 130, 1741–1749 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-017-6535-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-017-6535-6

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