Abstract
Azobenzene (azo) has attracted tremendous attention on solar thermal fuels on account of controllable energy storage and release. However, it remains great challenge to realize the light-induced rapid heat output due to the limited structure transformation. Herein, we synthesized two kinds of azo compounds (T-Azo, F-Azo) with different alkyl chains. The compounds combine multiple functions, reversible phase (solid-to-liquid) transition and trans-cis isomerization, to realize optically controllable heat release at room temperature. Compared with the F-Azo (8.2 °C), the relatively short-chain T-Azo obviously decreases to −6.3 °C in crystallization temperature after trans-to-cis isomerization due to weak molecular interaction. The F-Azo releases photo-thermal energy and phase-change enthalpy reaching a high energy density of 198.4 J g−1, which is 16% higher than that of T-Azo (170.5 J g−1). The IR thermal imaging camera shows that the temperature difference of F-Azo attains 2.1 °C at room temperature (25 °C) under the illumination of blue light (420 nm). This work puts an insightful understanding of controlling photo-thermal energy by phase change and photoisomerization.
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