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Paraffin/polyethylene/graphite composite phase change materials with enhanced thermal conductivity and leakage-proof

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Abstract

Paraffin, as a low-cost organic phase change material (PCM), has the advantage of large latent heat in a phase change but suffers from the disadvantage of poor thermal conductivity and easy leakage. Improving the thermal conductivity and enhancing the leakage-proof of paraffin are significantly important for its large-scale application. In this work, we adopt the convenient melt blending method to prepare the paraffin/high-density polyethylene (HDPE)/expandable graphite (EG) composite PCMs. The results show that HDPE as a packaging medium can restrict the leakage of paraffin efficiently, and the introduction of EG can significantly improve the heat transfer rate of the PCM. By optimizing the ratio of each component, the sample PCM10-5 (HDPE 10 wt%, EG 5 wt%) exhibits the best performance and its thermal conductivity is 0.641 W/(m · K), which is 2.7 times than that of paraffin, and the speed of response to temperature is increased by about 25.9%. It is noted that the paraffin would be leaked completely at 70 °C, while the leakage of PCM10-5 is only 30% owing to the HDPE packaging. The 120 thermal cycles show that the heat loss of PCM10-5 is within 5%, suggesting its high thermal storage stability. The excellent properties of composite PCMs render it broad application potentials in low-temperature thermal management devices.

Graphical abstract

The paraffin/HDPE/EG composite phase change materials exhibits enhanced thermal conductivity and leakage-proof properties compared to the matrix, which is attributed to the addition of HDPE as packaging materials and the introduction of EG as conductive fillers.

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Funding

This work is supported by National Key Research and Development Project from MOST (2018YFD0700200) and the fund from BUCT.

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Author notes

  1. Yifei Xie and Yongping Yang equally contributed to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, China

    Yifei Xie, Yongping Yang, Shitao Wang & Dapeng Cao

  2. Institute of Food Engineering, Academy of Agricultural Planning and Engineering, Beijing, 100125, China

    Yu Liu, Xuexia Guo & Hai Wang

Authors
  1. Yifei Xie
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  2. Yongping Yang
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  3. Yu Liu
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  4. Shitao Wang
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  6. Hai Wang
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  7. Dapeng Cao
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Correspondence to Shitao Wang, Hai Wang or Dapeng Cao.

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Xie, Y., Yang, Y., Liu, Y. et al. Paraffin/polyethylene/graphite composite phase change materials with enhanced thermal conductivity and leakage-proof. Adv Compos Hybrid Mater 4, 543–551 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42114-021-00249-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42114-021-00249-6

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