Supercooling suppression and thermal behavior improvement of erythritol as phase change material for thermal energy storage

The influence of encapsulation, thickening agent and nucleating agent on the supercooling, heat discharging performance and reliability of erythritol was investigated. The capsules containing erythritol with 1.5 wt% carboxymethylcellulose and 3.0 wt% nano-alumina have mitigated subcooling of 14.8 °C, improved heat release efficiency of 96.7% and enhanced thermal conductivity of 0.84 W/m K. The results demonstrated that encapsulation and adding additives are effective ways to improve the thermal behavior of ET.132