Phase Change Materials Encapsulated by Silica/Polydopamine/Cellulose Nano Fiber for Thermal Energy Storage

Managing energy in an efficient and eco-friendly has been considered as an important issue recently. Phase change material has attracted widespread attention due to its convenient heat storage system by absorbing and releasing heat during phase change and thus studied to use as wide application such as solar cells, battery heat management system, fabrics, and buildings. Various organic materials including paraffin, fatty acids, and polybasic alcohol. Among these materials, paraffin waxes are widely used as a phase change material due to its large amount of latent heat. However, several critical issues made it difficult to use paraffin wax individually such as phase separation, leakage and corrosion. In this study, paraffin wax is encapsulated by silica/polydopamine/cellulose for enhanced mechanical strength of shell. Silica is synthesized by polycondensation of tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) with paraffin and a spherical core shell capsule is obtained. Polydopamine is then coated to a prepared microcapsule by self-polymerization of dopamine in tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane (TRIS) buffer. Cellulose nano fiber is coated to as-prepared polydopamine-silica PCM capsule. Thermal property including latent heat and flammability of the pcm microcapsule was investigated by differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Scanning electron microscope (SEM), atomic force microscope (AFM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) were used to investigate its morphology. Composition of the material was investigated by using Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR).