Lauric acid hybridizing fly ash composite for thermal energy storage

Abstract

Fly ash includes different mineral phases. This paper reported on the preparation of a novel lauric acid (LA)/fly ash (FA) composite by vacuum impregnation as a form-stable phase change material (PCM) for thermal energy, and especially investigated the effect of the hydrochloric acid-treated fly ash (FAh) on the thermal energy storage performance of the composites. The morphology, crystalline structure, and porous textures of the samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The results indicated that hydrochloric acid treatment was beneficial to the increase of loading capacity and crystallinity of LA in the LA/FAh composite, which caused an enhanced thermal storage capacity with latent heats for melting and freezing of LA/FAh (80.94 and 77.39 J/g), higher than those of LA/FA (34.09 and 32.97 J/g), respectively. Furthermore, the mechanism of enhanced thermal storage properties was investigated in detail.