As
a typical phase-change material (PCM) with high heat storage
capacity and wide distribution, hydrated salts play broad and critical
roles in solar energy utilization in recent years. However, the leakage
and supercooling problems of hydrated salts have been a constraint
to their further practical applications. In the current work, the
super-hydrophilic reduced graphene oxide (RGO) aerogels modified by
konjac glucomannan (KGM) as supporting structural materials are prepared
by the hydrothermal reaction-freeze-drying, which can effectively
absorb and convert visible sunlight energy into thermal energy. In
addition, the super-hydrophilic aerogels compounded with PCMs can
ameliorate the shortcoming of leakage and suppress the supercooling
temperature as low about 0.2–1.5 °C in the freezing process.
Under 1 sun irradiation, the prepared sodium acetate trihydrate/KGM-modified
graphene oxide aerogel (SAT/KRGO) composite PCM achieves a high photothermal
conversion efficiency (86.3%) due to its good light absorption property.
The number of cycles has no apparent effect on the supercooling of
the composite materials, suggesting their stable thermal cycles and
thermal storage.
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