Thermal Modelling on Solar-Absorbing Metamaterial Microencapsulation of Phase Change Materials for Smart Textiles

Abstract

This paper will present a novel concept to design solar-absorbing metamaterial encapsulation of phase change materials (PCM) incorporated with thermo-regulated smart textiles for coats or garments especially for outdoor wear in cold weather. The metamaterial is a periodically nanostructured metal-dielectric-metal thin film and can acquire surface plasmons to trap or absorb solar energy at subwavelength scales. This kind of metamaterial microencapsulation is not only able to take advantage of latent heat that can be stored or released from the PCM over a tunable temperature range, but also has other advantages over conventional polymer microencapsulation of PCMs, such as enhanced thermal conductivity, improved flame retardant, and extra solar power resource. The thermal modelling for this metamaterial encapsulation has been done and will provide a guideline for future design of the integrated thermos-regulated smart textiles.