Polystyrene-based caprylic acid microencapsulation for thermal energy storage

•Caprylic (octanoic acid) microcapsules were synthesized with polystyrene shell material.•The emulsion polymerization technique was used.•Influence of the type and concentration of the crosslinking agent on thermal properties reported.•The effects of serial production on microencapsulation have been investigated by thermal methods.

In this study, caprylic (octanoic) acid microcapsules were synthesized with polystyrene shell material using the emulsion polymerization method. The influence of the type and concentration of the crosslinking agent on the phase-change properties of the microcapsules was examined. The structure and properties of the microcapsules have been characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). A second main contribution of this work is to investigate whether we could synthesize microcapsules with the same thermal properties during serial production. The effects of serial production on microencapsulated caprylic acid (microPCMs) have been investigated by thermal methods. The results show that reproducibility is an important parameter in the microencapsulation process. It was determined that when the synthesis amount is increased, we obtained lower efficiency in the microencapsulation of caprylic acid.