Form-stable phase change composites with high thermal conductivity and electrical insulation

Abstract

The commercialization of phase change materials (PCMs) based on paraffin is obstructed by the drawbacks of leakage and low thermal conductivity. Herein, we developed form-stable phase change composites via trapping paraffin into triblock copolymer. The hybrid filler, namely boron nitride and Ag-coated hollow glass microspheres (Ag@HGMs), was introduced to enhance the thermal conductivity of the composites. The latent heat values of composites could be easily tailored in a range of 157.6–192.4 J g−1 by changing the loading of filler. Interestingly, the addition of boron nitride and Ag@HGMs hybrid filler has little impact on electrical insulation property, and displays a synergistic effect on the heat transfer improvement within the composites. The sample BN/Ag@HGMs-4 exhibits excellent latent heat, electrical insulation performance, thermal recycling properties and stability, and the thermal conductivity reaches up to 1.54 W m−1 K−1, which has great potential application in thermal management and heat energy collection system.