Energy asymmetry in melting and solidifying processes of PCM

The solidifying process of phase change material (PCM) was usually recognized as the exact inverse process of its melting process, especially when building the heat transfer model of PCM. To figure out that whether the melting process and the solidifying process of PCM were symmetrical, several kinds of PCMs were tested by a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) in this paper. The experimental results showed that no matter using the DSC dynamic measurement method or the DSC step measurement method, the melting process and the solidifying process of PCM were asymmetrical. Because of the energy asymmetry in the melting and solidifying processes of PCM, it was also found that the enthalpy and the state of PCM were not only dependent on its temperature, but also affected by its “previous state”.