Abstract:

In this study, porous polymer composites that can be used as support materials in low temperature latent thermal energy storage applications were produced by emulsion templating method and the morphological, thermal and mechanical properties of the obtained materials were investigated. For this purpose, nanocellulose in the form of fibril was modified in order to make compatible with the emulsion system and used as a filler to improve the properties of porous polymeric foams obtained by polymerization of high internal phase emulsions. The morphological, thermal and mechanical properties of the obtained porous materials were investigated by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and compression modulus measurements, respectively. In addition, the specific surface area values of the produced support materials were determined with the Brunauer–Emmet–Teller (BET) surface area and pore size analyzer. It has been observed that the addition of cellulose nanofibril filler in porous materials contributes positively to the pore morphology and thermal stability of the composite materials, while increasing the surface area values. The obtained composite materials were used as support materials in the production of shape-stabilized composite phase change materials (PCMs) containing n-pentadecane. As a result of thermal analyzes performed with Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC); it was found that composite PCM with a support matrix containing 0.75 wt(%) cellulose nanofibril filler has the highest n-pentadecane encapsulation ratio (61.12%) and the highest thermal energy storage capacity (122.0 J/g).

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