Lauric acid/bentonite/flake graphite composite as form-stable phase change materials for thermal energy storage

The main purpose of this paper was to synthesize a novel form-stable composite phase change material (PCM). Herein, bentonite-based PCMs were synthesized by impregnating Na-bentonite clay with lauric acid (LA) through a vacuum impregnation method. Flake graphite (FG) was used to enhance the thermal conductivity of the composite PCMs. In addition, FG also helped block the leakage of the PCMs. It is worth noting that with the addition of FG, the period of melting and solidifying of composite PCMs were decreased to some extent. Meanwhile, the thermal conductivity of the PCMs has been obviously improved. Moreover, the synthesized composite PCM exhibited a favorable performance of reliability after 200 thermocycling test. Hence, this study showed that the developed composite PCM has the potential to be applied in thermal energy storage systems.