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A flexible composite phase change material with ultrahigh stretchability for thermal management in wearable electronics

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Abstract

Application of phase change materials (PCMs)-based thermal management technology in flexible electronic devices has been inhibited due to the leakage and strong rigidity of PCMs. A novel flexible composite PCMs with ultrahigh extensibility was developed in this paper. Concretely, a kind of paraffin@copper (PA@Cu) microcapsule with paraffin as core and nano-Cu particle as “flexible” metal shell was prepared by a simple Pickering emulsion method in an aqueous medium. The encapsulation ratio of paraffin reached 98wt%. Then the PA@Cu microcapsules were introduced into uncured liquid silicone to fabricate flexible composite PCMs (PA@Cu/SE). SEM results demonstrated that the microcapsules were tightly and uniformly wrapped in the three-dimensional network structure of silicone elastomer matrix. Owing to the good compatibility of PA@Cu with the polymer elastomer and a barrier for the melted PA provided by the “flexible” nano-Cu shell, the resulting composite PCMs present superior flexibility and thermal reliability. Tensile tests showed that the flexible composites with a relative higher loading of PA@Cu (40wt%) exhibit outstandingly larger extensibility (> 730%) than many reported literatures. In addition, the composites presenting superior thermal protection for biological tissue make them well-suited for thermal management in wearable electronics.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. LQ21E030002, Hangzhou City Agriculture and Social Development General Project under Grant No. 20201203B118. We thank instrumentation and service center for physical sciences of Westlake University for the facility support and technical assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering, Westlake University, 18 Shilongshan Road, Hangzhou, 310024, Zhejiang Province, China

    Na Sun & Xiangqing Li

  2. Institute of Advanced Technology, Westlake Institute for Advanced Study, Hangzhou, 310024, China

    Na Sun & Xiangqing Li

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  1. Na Sun
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  2. Xiangqing Li
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Correspondence to Na Sun.

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Sun, N., Li, X. A flexible composite phase change material with ultrahigh stretchability for thermal management in wearable electronics. J Mater Sci 56, 15937–15949 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-021-06290-6

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