Development and Performance of Thermal Adaptive Lauric Acid‐based Binary Phase Change Materials

ABSTRACT

Lauric acid has high phase change latent heat and good thermal stability at room temperature and pressure. Develop a binary eutectic mixture based on lauric acid with a phase transition temperature near room temperature for application in building envelope. The theoretical ratios of lauric acid‐stearic acid (LA‐SA), lauric acid‐myristic acid (LA‐MA), and lauric acid—n‐hexadecanol (LA‐HD) are predicted to be M _LA = 85%, M _LA = 65%, and M _LA = 64%, respectively. and the actual eutectic ratio of LA‐SA, LA‐MA, and LA‐HD is M _LA = 82%, M _LA = 70%, and M _LA = 54%. The results show that the theoretical calculated values are in basically agreement with the experimental values. Moreover, FT‐IR and XRD analyses indicated that none of the three eutectic mixtures, namely LA‐SA, LA‐MA, and LA‐HD, underwent chemical reactions and exhibited good chemical stability. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and cycle tests showed that LA‐SA eutectic and LA‐MA eutectic materials showed good thermal stability and reliability below 100°C.However, LA‐HD binary materials showed phase separation during the cycle, which proved their poor thermal reliability. In conclusion, LA‐SA and LA‐MA‐based binary eutectic PCM are building heat storage materials with good performance, while the thermal reliability of LA‐HD still needs to be fully considered in practical applications.