Polyethylene Glycol-Calcium Chloride Phase Change Materials with High Thermal Conductivity and Excellent Shape Stability by Introducing Three-Dimensional Carbon/Carbon Fiber Felt

Xinfeng Wu; Shanshan Shi; Ying Wang; Bo Tang; Leyang Guo; Yuan Gao; Tao Jiang; Ke Yang; Kai Sun; Yuantao Zhao; Wenge Li; Jinhong Yu

doi:10.1021/acsomega.1c05186

Polyethylene Glycol-Calcium Chloride Phase Change Materials with High Thermal Conductivity and Excellent Shape Stability by Introducing Three-Dimensional Carbon/Carbon Fiber Felt

ACS Omega. 2021 Nov 24;6(48):33033-33045. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.1c05186. eCollection 2021 Dec 7.

Authors

Xinfeng Wu¹, Shanshan Shi¹, Ying Wang², Bo Tang³, Leyang Guo², Yuan Gao¹, Tao Jiang², Ke Yang⁴, Kai Sun¹, Yuantao Zhao², Wenge Li², Jinhong Yu⁵

Affiliations

¹ College of Ocean Science and Engineering, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai 201306, China.
² Merchant Marine College, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai 201306, China.
³ Hangzhou Vulcan New Materials Technology Co., Ltd., Hangzhou 311255, China.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Related Technologies, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Protective Technologies, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology & Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo 315201, China.

Abstract

The low thermal conductivity and poor shape stability of phase change materials (PCMs) have seriously restricted their applications in energy storage and energy saving. In this paper, poly(ethylene glycol)-calcium chloride/carbon/carbon fiber felt (PEG-CaCl₂/CCF) PCMs were fabricated by a liquid-phase impregnation-vacuum drying-hot compression molding method with carbon/carbon fiber felt as the three-dimensional (3D) thermal skeleton and PEG-CaCl₂ as the polymer PCM matrix. PCMs were heated and compressed by the compression confinement method to improve the contact area between 3D skeleton carbon fibers. The carbon fibers in PCMs presented a 3D (X-Y-Z) network structure and the fiber arrangement was anisotropic, which were beneficial to improve the thermal conductivity of PCMs in the fiber direction. The compression confinement can improve the contact area between the fibers in the 3D skeleton. As a result, the thermal conductivity of PEG-CaCl₂/CCF PCMs can reach 3.35 W/(m K) (in-plane) and 1.94 W/(m K) (through-plane), about 985 and 571% of that of PEG-CaCl₂, respectively. Due to the complexation of PEG and CaCl₂ and the 3D skeleton support of carbon fiber felt, PCMs have excellent shape stability. The paper may provide some suggestions for the preparation of high thermal conductivity and excellent shape stability PCMs.