Fabrication, thermal property and thermal reliability of microencapsulated paraffin with ethyl methacrylate-based copolymer shell

This study deals with fabrication, thermal properties and thermal reliabilities of microencapsulated paraffin by suspension-like copolymerization of ethyl methacrylate (EMA) with acrylic acid (AA) and styrene (St). Trimethylolpropanetriacrylate (TMPTA) was employed as crosslinking agents. The microencapsulated phase change materials (MicroPCMs) were characterized by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry and thermal gravimetric analysis (TG). The microcapsule with P(EMA-co-AA-co-St-co-TMPTA) copolymer as shell exhibits higher phase change enthalpies of melting (117.8 J g(-1)) and crystallization (115.3 J g(-1)) compared with the microcapsule with P(EMA-co-AA-co-TMPTA) copolymer. TG analysis demonstrated that the thermal resistant temperatures of these two MicroPCMs were increased by more than 10 degrees C compared with the raw paraffin. The PCMs content of these two MicroPCMs dropped by <6 % after 1000 thermal cycling. Thermal images showed that the foam with microcapsule exhibits an upgraded thermal regulation capacity. As a consequence, microcapsules with EMA-based copolymer possess good potentials for thermal energy storage and thermal regulation.