Microencapsulation of Phase Change Materials (PCMs) as a Thermal Energy Storage (TES) Medium: A Review

The use of phase change materials (PCMs) is a very effective way of the thermal energy storage (TES) and has the advantages of high energy storage density and nearly constant phase change temperature. Heat is absorbed or released when the material changes from solid to liquid or vice versa by latent heat. However, using of PCMs in TES systems have some drawbacks such as low thermal conductivity of most of PCMs, chemical reaction with neighboured materials, leakage through the melting process, and high changes in volume as phase change occurs, which can be tackled by microencapsulation of PCMs. There are several methods and techniques for microencapsulation of different kinds of PCMs that leads to microcapsules with different morphology, structure, and thermal property. This paper summarizes the techniques and investigations deal with the microencapsulation of PCMs that would provide a useful tool for the researchers working in this area.

Keywords:

Thermal Energy Storage , Phase Change Material , Microencapsulation , Microcapsule