Excellent thermal stability P(BeA-co-MMA) microcapsules with high thermal energy storage capacity

Abstract

Low thermal stability and the shortage of core leakage strongly limit the application of conventional energy storage microcapsules. This study focuses on a novel strategy to develop a new phase change material with excellent thermal durability without core leakage. The new phase change materials is a P(BeA-co-MMA) copolymer microcapsule with crystalline n-alkane side chains. Under the protection of polymer main chains as the shell or skeleton structure on a nano-scale, the crystalline side chains as the core will no longer suffer loss and will maintain stablity in use. The chemical composition, inner homogeneous structure, thermoregulation properties, crystalline behaviour and thermal stability are discussed. The P(BeA-co-MMA) microcapsules provide energy storage capacity in the temperature range of 48–62 °C with the highest enthalpy of 105.1 J g−1. The 5% weight loss temperature (T5%) is more than 315 °C, which is high enough to withstand the general polymer processing temperature to open the possibility of developing energy storage modified fibre and polymer materials as functional fillers.