CaCl2·6H2O is selected as the original substrate for research, and a new composite phase change material (CPCM) suitable for air-conditioning was developed through experiments. The new modified CaCl2·6H2O CPCM uses glycerol as a temperature regulator and barium hydroxide octahydrate as a nucleating agent. The experimental results show that when the mass ratio of CaCl2·6H2O to glycerol is 85:15, the melting temperature of the CPCM is 11.8 °C and the enthalpy of phase change is 112.86 J/g. The chemical composition of the CPCM was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, which confirmed that the material was successfully developed. When the amount of barium hydroxide octahydrate nucleating agent was 1.0 wt.%, the supercooling of the CPCM decreased to 1.22 °C. CPCM still show good stability after 50 thermal cycles and can be used in practical production.
Benefitting from the characteristics of a high latent heat capacity and stable phase change behavior, phase change materials have widely received concerns in the field of thermodynamic management. Ba(OH)2·8H2O is an ideal phase change material (PCM) in the mid-to-low temperature range, but its large-scale application is still limited by severe supercooling during the nucleation process. In this paper, the experimental analysis and comparison are performed via an Edisonian approach, where Ba(OH)2·8H2O is adopted as an original substrate; BaCO3, CaCl2, NaCl, KH2PO4, and NaOH are selected as nucleating agents; and graphite is used as a heat-conducting agent. The results show that Ba(OH)2·8H2O containing 1.2% BaCO3 and 0.2% graphite powder has the best performance. Compared with pure Ba(OH)2·8H2O, the supercooling degree is reduced to less than 1 °C, the phase change latent heat duration is extended, and the thermal conductivity is significantly improved. Therefore, this study not only provides a reference for the application of Ba(OH)2·8H2O, but can also be used as a guidance for other material modifications.
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