Synthesis and light-heat conversion performance of hybrid particles decorated MWCNTs/paraffin phase change materials

In this study, we adopted the organic precursor thermal decomposition method to prepare Cu2O-Cu-MWCNTs/paraffin light-thermal conversion phase change material via one-step. The phase, micro morphology, phase change behavior, thermal reliability and thermal stability of the products were respectively characterized by XRD, SEM, DSC and TGA. We also investigated their light-thermal conversion properties. The results indicated when the content of precursor was 0.005 mol and 0.01 mol, the average particles size of hybird particles (Cu and Cu2O) were 30 nm and 400 nm, respectively. It was also found that the light-heat conversion performance of Cu2O-Cu-MWCNTs/paraffin were better than that of MWCNTs/paraffin with the same mass fraction. After we conducted analyses of UV-vis diffuse reflection spectra and thermal conductivity, We attributed the better light-heat conversion performance of Cu2O-Cu-MWCNTs/paraffin to the high light absorption ability of Cu2O and the reduction of interface thermal resistance between MWCNTs and paraffinresulting from Cu and Cu2O decorated MWCNTs.