Preparation and characterization of lauric acid–stearic acid/expanded perlite as a composite phase change material

Abstract

Rapid energy consumption stimulates the development of energy-saving materials. In this work, the L–S eutectic mixture used as a PCM was compounded with EP via vacuum adsorption to synthesize LS/EP CPCM. The maximum mass adsorption rate of EP on L–S is determined to be 70% via leakage experiments. The microscopic morphology, chemical, and crystal structure were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD), respectively. The phase change properties were measured by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The melting temperature of LS/EP is 37.79 °C, with a latent heat of 126.05 J g⁻¹, and it has a crystallinity of over 90%. The thermal decomposition was evaluated by TGA. The initial decomposition temperature is 132.20 °C for LS/EP. In addition, the results of accelerated phase change cycling experiments showed that LS/EP CPCM has good reliability.