Issue 41, 2023

Structure and thermal property relationships in the thermomaterial di-n-butylammonium tetrafluoroborate for multipurpose cooling and cold-storage

Abstract

Nowadays around 46% of food production around the world requires refrigeration, which is generally provided either by active vapour-compression (based on refrigerants with liquid–gas transitions) or passive cold-storage (based on solid-to-liquid phase change materials, SL-PCMs). However, in order to avoid fluid losses during the transitions, new thermomaterials with solid–solid transitions are desired for both applications. In this work, we find that [DBA][BF4] (DBA = di-n-butylammonium) is a promising thermomaterial with solid–solid phase transitions. This compound presents thermal properties of great interest not only for active barocaloric refrigeration, but also for passive cold-storage, which make this a unique multipurpose thermomaterial. The observed cold-storage capacity is very close to that of commercial SL-PCMs (E ∼ 135 kJ kg−1), while the pressure-induced thermal changes (ΔS ∼ [200–270] J K−1 kg−1) are superior to those of most barocaloric materials, operating under lower pressures (p ∼ [500–1000] bar). Moreover, the operating temperature range of this material is very adequate for food preservation (250–310 K), which is a great advantage over most barocaloric materials. Beyond the thermal properties, we perform deep structural characterization, which reveals a progressive structural disorder of the [DBA]+ cations and [BF4] anions as the origin of such thermal properties, which will help the future rational design of enhanced thermomaterials.

Graphical abstract: Structure and thermal property relationships in the thermomaterial di-n-butylammonium tetrafluoroborate for multipurpose cooling and cold-storage

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
10 Jūl. 2023
Accepted
14 Sept. 2023
First published
16 Sept. 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023,11, 22232-22247

Structure and thermal property relationships in the thermomaterial di-n-butylammonium tetrafluoroborate for multipurpose cooling and cold-storage

J. García-Ben, J. M. Bermúdez-García, R. J. C. Dixey, I. Delgado-Ferreiro, A. L. Llamas-Saiz, J. López-Beceiro, R. Artiaga, A. García-Fernández, U. B. Cappel, B. Alonso, S. Castro-García, A. E. Phillips, M. Sánchez-Andújar and M. A. Señarís-Rodríguez, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023, 11, 22232 DOI: 10.1039/D3TA04063A

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