Characterisation and stability analysis of eutectic fatty acid as a low cost cold energy storage phase change material

Abstract

Abstract Phase Change Material (PCM) is one of the most promising material for storing thermal energy and supplying the stored energy for cooling applications but low cost, easily available PCM are quiet less. The present work focused on the development of a suitable eutectic PCM for low temperature applications like building cooling, based on organic fatty acids, capric acid (CA) and myristic acid (MA) in the mass ratio of 85:15 and investigating their thermal properties, chemical and thermal stabilities by using by using DSC, FT-IR, TGA and KD2 Pro. Thermal cycle test were also investigated through developed thermal cycle equipment. The properties were also compared with their individual fatty acids. From the DSC test, the latent heat capacity was determined as 156.99 J/g and the phase change temperature as 20.86 °C. Thermal conductivity of liquid CA-MA PCM was measured as 0.152 W/mK. Thermal gravimetric analysis results revealed that the eutectic PCM had high thermal stability. Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) revealed that the binary eutectic mixture had good chemical stability. Thus, the new low-cost, CA-MA eutectic PCM possessed high latent heat for low temperature with good thermal and chemical stabilities making it a potential phase change material for cold energy storage applications.