Synthesis and characterization of lauric acid/carboxymethyl cellulose ester and polylactic acid phase change material

Abstract

In this study, lauric acid was introduced in sodium carboxymethyl cellulose via esterification reaction in dimethylacetamide in the presence of polylactic acid (PLA) as the supporting material, affording lauric acid/carboxymethyl cellulose ester (LACCE) phase change materials. The resulting LACCE phase change materials were characterized by FTIR, 1H-nuclear magnetic resonance, and X-ray diffraction analyses. The mechanical testing studies showed that the optimal dosage of LACCE to blend with PLA was 15%. The tubular structure of cellulose and the microstructure of the grafted LACCE were obtained by scanning electron microscopy. After the normalized value, the phase change latent heat of LACCE and LACCE-PLA was 153.06 and 86.40 J/g, respectively, and the phase change temperature was 39.62 and 40.10 °C by differential scanning calorimetry analysis. The thermal gravimetric analysis results revealed that PLA enhanced the thermal stability of LACCE and improved the initial thermal degradation temperature by 30.43%, indicating that the composites had good thermal properties.