A novel nano-porous aluminum substrate with anodizing treatment to encapsulate 1-tetrapropanol as composite phase change materials for thermal energy utilization

Abstract

In this study, an innovative matrix material has been designed and prepared for supporting phase change materials (PCMs) to optimize the thermal property of composite PCM. The abandoned thin-slice aluminum substrate (TS-AS) is etched electrochemically into porous layer with peak-valley structure via anodizing surface treatment, nano-porous Al2O3 film growing on the TS-AS surface is used to encapsulate 1-tetrapropanol (1-TD) to prepare nano-porous TS-AS/1-TD composite PCM. According to thermal properties test results, the melting temperature and phase change latent heat (PCHL) of TS-AS/1-TD composite are 36.9 °C and 97.4 J/g, and its thermal conductivity is enhanced by 560.0% compared to pure 1-TD by introducing porous TS-AS, both these thermal properties show excellent sustainability maintaining only ±1.4% variation even after 400 times melting/freezing thermal cycles, while the composite PCM performs good thermal stability beyond 144.7 °C, which enables them to behave as thermal energy absorbing materials applied to cooling the generated heat from running precision device. Besides, the anodizing mechanism inspires the further optimization of aluminum substrate or other metal substrates by regulating porous layer morphology and thickness.