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Abstract
A series of novel composite phase change materials (PCMs) were tailored by blending PEG and five kinds of diatomite via a vacuum impregnation method. To enlarge its pore size and specific surface area, different modification approaches including calcination, acid treatment, alkali leaching and nano-silica decoration on the microstructure of diatomite were outlined. Among them, 8 min of 5 wt% NaOH dissolution at 70 °C has been proven to be the most effective and facile. While PEG melted during phase transformation, the maximum load of PEG could reach 70 wt.%, which was 46% higher than that of the raw diatomite. The apparent activation energy of PEG in the composite was 1031.85 kJ·mol−1, which was twice higher than that of the pristine PEG. Moreover, using the nano-silica decorated diatomite as carrier, the maximum PEG load was 66 wt%. The composite PCM was stable in terms of thermal and chemical manners even after 200 cycles of melting and freezing. All results indicated that the obtained composite PCMs were promising candidate materials for building applications due to its large latent heat, suitable phase change temperature, excellent chemical compatibility, improved supercooling extent, high thermal stability and long-term reliability.
Highlights
A series of novel composite phase change materials (PCMs) were tailored by blending polyethylene glycol (PEG) and five kinds of diatomite via a vacuum impregnation method
It can be clearly seen that all the sharp and intense diffraction peaks of PEG were observed for all the prepared PEG/diatomite shape-stabilized PCMs (ss-PCMs), indicating that the crystal structure of PEG is not destroyed after impregnation
It is noted that these typical peaks of PEG were all presented in the spectrum of composite PCMs, There was no significant new peak appearing in the spectrum of composite PCMs, which proved that there is no chemical interaction between PEG and diatomite
Summary
A series of novel composite phase change materials (PCMs) were tailored by blending PEG and five kinds of diatomite via a vacuum impregnation method. All results indicated that the obtained composite PCMs were promising candidate materials for building applications due to its large latent heat, suitable phase change temperature, excellent chemical compatibility, improved supercooling extent, high thermal stability and long-term reliability. Phase change materials (PCMs) are latent heat energy storage materials that possess the competitive advantages of high energy storage density, isothermal operating characteristics, and smaller temperature variation[3,4] They have triggered the interest of academic and industrial application in storing thermal energy collected from solar radiation. Highly porous structure (80–90%), excellent absorption capacity, low density, chemical inertness, and relatively low price[13,14,15,16] With these advantages, diatomite can be seen as a sort of feasible low-weight carrier material of PCMs for energy storage in buildings. In order to enhance the thermal storage capacity, considerable efforts have been devoted to the development of novel ss-PCMs with high PCM load[14]
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