Flexible phase change film doped hydrothermal carbon towards
solar-thermal conversion and insulation thermal management
Abstract
Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is extremely challenging for solar-thermal
energy conversion and thermal management due to its solid-phase
rigidity, liquid-phase leakage, low thermal conductivity and weak light
absorption. In this paper, a solid-solid phase change material (HDPCM)
is obtained by the block copolymerization method with an enthalpy of
melting of 102.3 J/g, demonstrating a high thermal energy storage
capacity. We have innovatively combined this HDPCM with hydrothermal
carbon (HTC) to obtain a composite PCM with excellent thermal properties
and solar thermal energy conversion. HDPCM-HTC-3 has significant
mechanical flexibility shape cutability, and foldability. The
photothermal conversion efficiency is evaluated at 83.7%, indicating
its superior ability to convert solar energy into thermal energy. The
initial pyrolysis temperature exceeds 200 °C, indicating good thermal
stability. After 101 heating/cooling cycles, the chemical and thermal
properties remain essentially unchanged. Simulated thermal management
experiments show that this HDPCM-HTC-3 has good thermal management
performance, and that hot water from a loaded HDPCM-HTC-3 conical flask
can have significant thermal insulation performance, with the
temperature being constant for approximately 320 s over a range of
approximately 45 °C. The HDPCM-HTC-3 exhibits significant
temperature-controlled thermal management effects, showing potential
application prospects.