Synthesis and properties of high thermal conductivity Ag shell-coated phase change materials

Abstract Phase change micro/nanocapsules with high thermal conductivity shells have extensive application prospects in solar energy storage systems and electronics cooling. To improve the heat transfer of the capsules, a method of preparing Ag-shell coated phase change micro/nanocapsules was developed, where the AgBr ultrafine solid particles are introduced to enhance the rigidity of emulsion droplets in the liquid-solid phase transition process, and by employing hydroquinone as the reductant to repeatedly reduce the AgBr that had been adhered to the surface of the emulsion droplets, an Ag shell is formed on the surface of the cores. In this work, palmitic acid (PA) is used as the core material, and the prepared PA/Ag nanocapsules (100–600 nm) exhibit high thermal storage capability and good thermal reliability. The bulk thermal conductivity of the nanocapsules can be as high as 4.072 W/(m·K), indicating that the Ag shell can effectively improve the thermal conductivity of the nanocapsules. Besides, the thermal response of the nanocapsules is estimated by simulating a single-particle heat transfer process considering nanoscale effects, and the results demonstrate that the thermal response time of PA/Ag nanocapsule (350 nm) in working fluid (water, 80 °C) could be as short as 150ns.