Investigations on preparations and thermal properties of microencapsulated phase change materials

A series of microencapsulated phase change materials (micro-PCMs) were synthesized using suspension-like polymerization method. The micro-PCMs contained butyl stearate (BS) and octadecane (OC) as binary core materials. Trimethylolpropane triacrylate (TMPTA) and Trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate (TMPTMA) were introduced in polymerization system to respectively react with methyl methacrylate (MMA) or divinylbenzene (DVB) to form shell materials. SEM images showed that these micro-PCMs had compact surfaces and relatively spherical morphology, the diameter ranged from 5 to 40 mu m. DSC results indicated that the microencapsulation ratio could be reached as high as 82 wt.%.