Infrared thermography method for fast estimation of phase diagrams

• Infrared thermography is proposed to determine phase diagrams in record time.
• Phase boundaries are detected by means of emissivity changes during heating.
• Transition lines are identified by using Singular Value Decomposition techniques.
• Different binary systems have been used for validation purposes.

Phase change materials (PCM) are widely used today in thermal energy storage applications. Pure PCMs are rarely used because of non adapted melting points. Instead of them, mixtures are preferred. The search of suitable mixtures, preferably eutectics, is often a tedious and time consuming task which requires the determination of phase diagrams. In order to accelerate this screening step, a new method for estimating phase diagrams in record time (1–3 h) has been established and validated. A sample composed by small droplets of mixtures with different compositions (as many as necessary to have a good coverage of the phase diagram) deposited on a flat substrate is first prepared and cooled down to ambient temperature so that all droplets crystallize. The plate is then heated at constant heating rate up to a sufficiently high temperature for melting all the small crystals. The heating process is imaged by using an infrared camera. An appropriate method based on singular values decomposition technique has been developed to analyze the recorded images and to determine the transition lines of the phase diagram. The method has been applied to determine several simple eutectic phase diagrams and the reached results have been validated by comparison with the phase diagrams obtained by Differential Scanning Calorimeter measurements and by thermodynamic modelling.