Encapsulation of Paraffin Phase-Change Materials within Monolithic MTMS-Based Silica Aerogels

Abstract

To address the leakage issue of paraffin phase-change materials in thermal management, a monolithic MTMS-based silica aerogel (MSA) is employed to encapsulate paraffin through a facile impregnation process. We find that the paraffin and MSA form a physical combination, with little interaction occurring between them. The prepared no-leakage paraffin/MSA composites have a density of 0.70 g/cm3 and exhibit good mechanical properties and nice hydrophobicity, with a contact angle of 122°. Furthermore, the average latent heat of the paraffin/MSA composites is found to reach up to 209.3 J/g, about 85% of the pure paraffin’s latent heat, which is significantly larger than other paraffin/silica aerogel phase-change composite materials. The thermal conductivity of the paraffin/MSA remains almost the same as that of the pure paraffin (~250 mW/m/K), without any heat transfer interference from the MSA skeletons. All these results indicate that MSA can effectively serve as a carrier material for encapsulating paraffin, which is beneficial for expanding the applications of MSAs in thermal management and energy storage.