Preparation and Thermal Performance Enhancement of Low Temperature Eutectic Composite Phase Change Materials Based on Na₂SO₄·10H₂O.

Pumin Hou,Jinfeng Mao,Yong Li,Xian Dong,Fei Chen

doi:10.3390/ma11112230

Abstract

In this paper, a series of Na2SO4·10H2O–KCl eutectic mixtures were prepared by adding different mass fractions of KCl (1 wt.%, 3 wt.%, 5 wt.%, or 7 wt.%) to Na2SO4·10H2O. Polyacrylamide (PAM) was proposed as the thickener, sodium tetraborate decahydrate (STD) was proposed as the nucleating agent, and expanded graphite (EG) was proposed as the high thermal conductivity medium for Na2SO4·10H2O–5 wt.% KCl eutectics. The results showed that in Na2SO4·10H2O–5 wt.% KCl eutectics with 5 wt.% PAM and 5 wt.% STD, almost no phase separation occurred, and the degree of supercooling was reduced to 0.4 °C. The thermal performance of Na2SO4·10H2O–5 wt.% KCl composite phase change materials (CPCMs) with varying contents of EG was explored. The results showed that EG could improve the thermal conductivity effectively and that the mass fraction of EG should be no more than 3%, otherwise the crystallization value and supercooling would deteriorate. The thermal reliability of the Na2SO4·10H2O–5 wt.% KCl eutectic CPCMs containing 5 wt.% PAM, 5 wt.% STD, and 3 wt.% EG was investigated, mainly through the ambient temperature, thermal cycling test, and TGA analysis. The results demonstrated that these CPCMs showed perfect thermal reliability.

Highlights

Building energy consumption accounts for an increasing proportion of global energy consumption year by year, while heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems account for 60% of building energy consumption [1]
The eutectic composite phase change materials (CPCMs) were obtained by a simple blending method
A series of low-temperature eutectic CPCMs consisting of Na SO ·10H O and KCl

Summary

Introduction

Building energy consumption accounts for an increasing proportion of global energy consumption year by year (up to 40%), while heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems account for 60% of building energy consumption [1]. Reducing the energy consumption of HVAC systems is one of the most important ways to cut down building energy consumption and global energy consumption. The PCMs selected for building envelopes should possess a suitable melting point, high heat storage density, good thermal conductivity, small volume change, and so on [1,7]. These materials mainly include paraffin waxes [8,9,10], fatty acids [11], salt hydrates [12,13], and eutectics [14,15]

Methods

Results

Conclusion