Preparation and characterization of novel nanoencapsulated phase change materials

A kind of novel nanoencapsulated PCM with polystyrene as the shell and n-octadecane as the core was synthesized by the ultrasonic-assistant miniemulsion in-situ polymerization, and its morphology, structure and thermal properties were characterized by TEM, FT-IR, XRD, DSC and TG. The nanocapsules were regular spherical and ranged from 100 nm to 123 nm in size. All the characteristic peaks of n-octadecane and styrene were observed in the FT-IR spectrum of the nanoencapsulated PCM. The XRD result suggested that n-octadecane was encapsulated by the shell of polystyrene. The phase change temperature of the nanoencapsulated PCM was very closer to that of n-octadecane, and its latent heat was equivalent to that of the calculated value based on the mass ratio of n-octadecane measured by TG.