Preparation and thermal properties of phase change energy storage composite material based on modified fly ash

Fly ash (FA) is a kind of porous solid waste from coal-fired power plant, It is nominated as adsorption carrier for solid-liquid phase change material (PCM), While shape-stabilized composite phase change materials (SSCPCM) prepared directly has low thermal performance due to limited adsorption capacity of FA. Therefore, modification methods have become increasingly attractive, and four modification methods were investigated to improve the adsorption capacity of FA. Modification treatment experiment proved that the surface structure of FA is significantly corroded. Test analysis displays that the surface microspheres in FA have abundant particles and pores by destroying the Si-O-Si and Si-O-Al network structures. The mass ratio of Al/Si increased from 0.59 to 0.726, and the specific surface area of FA has been greatly increased. Experimental results indicate that alkali modification followed by high-temperature calcination is the desirable process for FA. For obtaining high thermal performance materials, two kinds of SSCPCM were prepared according to the mass ratio of 65:35 by vacuum adsorption while Alkali modified FA serves as carrier, binary eutectic of lauric acid-stearic acid (LA-SA) and lauric acid-myristic acid (LA-MA) serves as PCM respectively. The LA-SA/AFA-OH (NaOH alkali leaching treatment for FA) and LA-MA/AFA-OH (NaOH alkali leaching treatment for FA) could reach 54.49 J/g and 47.15 J/g and the phase transition temperature (PTT) is 37.45 degrees C and 32.36 degrees C, respectively. The SSCPCM has good thermal, chemical and morphological stability over 500 thermal cycles, while the LA-MA/AFA-OH had higher stability and less thermal performance slightly. Research finding provide a feasible process for composite modification of FA, and application scope is extended due to high thermal performance of composites.