Abstract
Metal microspheres doping porous carbon (MMPC), which was prepared using in-situ pyrolysis reduction strategy, could enhance the thermal conductivity of shape-stabilized phase change material (ss-PCM) prepared by MMPC as the matrix. However, in previous studies that were reported, the preparation of MMPC needed to synthesize porous carbon by pyrolysis firstly, and then porous carbon adsorbed metal ions was pyrolyzed again to obtain MMPC, which was tedious and energy-prodigal. In this study, a one-step pyrolysis strategy was developed for the synthesis of MMPC through the pyrolyzation of wheat bran adsorbed copper ions, and the copper microspheres doping wheat bran biochar (CMS-WBB) was prepared. The CMS-WBB was taken as the supporter of stearic acid (SA) to synthesize the ss-PCM of SA/CMS-WBB. The study results about the thermal properties of SA/CMS-WBB demonstrated that the introduction of copper microspheres could not only improve the thermal conductivity of SA/CMS-WBB, but also could increase the SA loading amount of wheat bran biochar. More importantly, the CMS-WBB could be obtained by only one-step pyrolysis, which greatly simplified the preparation process and saved energy consumption. Furthermore, the raw material of wheat bran is a kind of agricultural waste, which is abundant, cheap and easy to obtain. Hence, the SA/CMS-WBB synthesized in this study had huge potentialities in thermal management applications, and a simplified method for improving the thermal properties of ss-PCMs was provided.
Highlights
Metal microspheres doping porous carbon (MMPC), which was prepared using in-situ pyrolysis reduction strategy, could enhance the thermal conductivity of shape-stabilized phase change material prepared by MMPC as the matrix
The results demonstrated that stearic acid (SA)/copper microspheres doping wheat bran biochar (CMS-wheat bran biochar (WBB)) could be regarded as a favorable material used in the aspect of energy storage, and in this paper a more convenient approach to improve the thermal property of shape-stabilized phase change material (ss-Phase change materials (PCMs)) was provided
The spherical copper particles were randomly distributed on the surface of WBB, and copper microspheres (CMS) was successfully attached to WBB
Summary
It could be illustrated from the pattern of WBB and CMS-WBB that the positions of diffraction peaks were the same, and the shapes and sizes were similar This result indicated that, the formation of copper microspheres on the surface of WBB did not change the superficial chemical functional groups of WBB. The DSC curves of SA, SA/WBB and SA/ CMS-WBB are presented, and the DSC thermograms of the composite PCMs and pure stearic acid were similar, which meant SA mainly used as the energy storage material during the phase transition process. The latent heat of melting and crystallization of stearic acid were 254.2 J/g and 254.5 J/g, and the corresponding values of SA/CMSWBB-2 were 84.91 J/g and 67.71 J/g, and this was consistent with the DSC patterns, in which it was observed that the peak area of SA/CMS-WBB composites was less than that of the pure stearic acid.
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