Waste sugarcane skin-based composite phase change material for thermal energy storage and solar energy utilization

Abstract

Organic phase change materials (PCMs) with stable melting temperature can efficiently store/release energy, but the leakage and dependence on ambient temperature are hindering their application in a specific environment such as occasions with extremely low temperatures. In this work, porous carbon material was prepared by using waste sugarcane peel (SP) with high fixed carbon as raw material. After loading octadecanamine, the SP porous carbon-based composite PCM reached the phase change enthalpy of 228.6 J/g and showed cycle stability. Meanwhile, composite PCM has excellent solar absorption and photothermal conversion ability. This work demonstrated that the waste SP can be utilized to fabricate highly efficient thermal energy storage and solar energy-utilizing composites, and the obtained results may provide inspiration to researchers.