Thermal analysis of PEG/Metal particle-coated viscose fabric

Abstract

The introduction of metal particles (MP) in the phase change materials (PCM) realizes the highly efficient thermal energy storage. However, a suitable carrier is necessary for PCM/MP composites for various applications. In this work, the polyethylene glycol (PEG) was used as PCM, five MPs including copper (Cu), aluminum (Al), silver (Ag), iron (Fe), and zinc (Zn) particles were used, and the viscose fabric was selected as a carrier for coating of PEG/MPs. The PEG was blended with different MPs with the same weight ratio of 72.3:23.7. Then, the PEG/MP-coated viscose fabric was prepared by applying PEG/MP composites on the viscose fabric with the same weight ratio of 90:10 and the PEG-coated viscose fabric (86.7:13.3) was set as reference. The phase transition of the prepared PEG/MP composites and the PEG/MP-coated viscose fabrics was investigated via the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The thermal behavior of the PEG/MP-coated viscose fabric was investigated via Alambeta device and the T-history method. The results revealed that the enthalpy of all the PEG/MP-coated viscose fabrics were larger than 100J/g. Besides, only the higher theoretical enthalpy of the PEG in the PEG/MP composites was found, and the MPs assisted in the higher crystallization of PEG. Results from the Alambeta device proved that the thermal conductivity was increased when MPs were introduced in the coated viscose fabric. T-history curves of all the PEG/MP-coated viscose fabric revealed that the heating constant of the phase transition stage mainly accounted for the quick heat transfer.

Keywords

• Thermal energy storage
• PEG
• Metal particle
• Viscose fabric
• Phase transition
• Newton's cooling law