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    Bulk Nanoencapsulation of Phase Change Materials (PCMs) via Spontaneous Spreading of a UV-Curable Prepolymer

    Year: 2020

    Journal: ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, Volume 12, NOV 11, page 51092–51101

    Authors: Park, Hyun-Su; Kwak, Chaesu; Lee, Junsoo; Lim, Sehyeong; Yang, Jeewon; Kim, Jieun; Ryu, Seoung Young; Na, Hyon Bin; Lee, Joohyung

    Organizations: Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) - Ministry of Education [NRF-2018R1D1A1A02085492]; Nano-Material Technology Development Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) - Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning [20090082580]

    Keywords: nanoencapsulation; spreading; phase change materials; UV-curable prepolymer; thermal energy storage; latent heat; colloidal processing

    Phase change materials (PCMs) have received considerable attention for various latent heat storage systems for efficient thermal energy utilization. Herein, a facile and fast method for the bulk nanoencapsulation of organic PCMs is proposed, based on the thermodynamically spontaneous spreading phenomenon of three immiscible liquid phases. In this approach, a complete engulfing of PCM nanodroplets (core phase) by immiscible prepolymer droplets (coating phase), both of which are bulk-dispersed in another immiscible medium (continuous phase), is thermodynamically driven by the relation between the surface energies of the core, coating, and continuous phases. To demonstrate the proposed method, melted n-docosane (PCM, core phase) nanodroplets are completely engulfed within a couple of minutes by immiscible polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA, coating phase) in an aqueous poly(vinyl alcohol) solution (continuous phase), and the PEGDA layer quickly cross-linked upon UV irradiation to form a rigid shell protecting the PCM core. As-produced PCM nanocapsules display promising heat storage and release performances as well as high durability in repeated heating-cooling cycles in both dry and wet states. The proposed process may serve as a useful platform for bulk production of PCM nanocapsules with various core and shell compositions in a facile, fast, and scalable way.
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