Comparative Study of Stearic Acid/Iron-Oxide Binary and Stearic Acid/Iron-Oxide/Titanium-Oxide Ternary for Use as Energy Storage Material

Abstract

In this work, a series of stearic acid/Fe3O4, and stearic acid/Fe3O4/TiO2 nanocomposites for thermal energy storage (TES) system were synthesized through a two-step process. Fe3O4 nanoparticles and Fe3O4/TiO2 nanocomposites were first prepared using sol-gel methods and then both samples were mixed into stearic acid by dispersion technique at three different weight % ratio to stearic acid: 5%, 10% and 15% to obtain stearic acid/Fe3O4, and stearic acid/Fe3O4/TiO2 nanocomposites. Morphologies and structural properties of the samples were characterized by X-ray diffractometer (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), while thermal properties of the sample were determined by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and fhermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The XRD patterns demonstrate, that stearic acid/Fe3O4 contained characteristic peaks of Fe3O4 and stearic acid structures, while peaks corresponded to anatase TiO2 structures appear in stearic acid/ Fe3O4/TiO2 nanocomposites. From the DSC measurements, it is found that the maximum latent heat was found at samples with weight ratio of 5%. Moreover, the enhancement up to 20% of latent heat in solidifying as well as melting processes was observed. TGA measurements show high degradation temperature in the range of 246 - 251°C. The TGA results also shows that the residual mass of the sample matches the composition of Fe3O4 and Fe3O4/TiO2 which is added to the stearic acid.