Polymer coatings for latent heat storage

MARIANO M. RUIZ; GUADALUPE RIVERO; WALTER F. SCHROEDER; IGNACIO E. DELL'ERBA; CRISTINA E. HOPPE

Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires

Simposio; XVI Simposio Latinoamericano de Polímeros - SLAP 2018; 2018

INTEMA, CONICET - Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata

In times of global warming, humanity needs to develop systems to generate and store energy in a green and efficient way. Phase Change Materials (PCMs) have been extensively studied and already applied in modern constructions as they can absorb heat during day and release it at night for keeping temperature between comfort levels. PCMs can be incorporated in many components of buildings, such as radiant floors, panels, concrete walls and windows. We propose to develop polymer coatings for smart windows with the ability of storing latent heat by incorporating eicosane (C20) into a host matrix obtained by crosslinking of poly (ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate (PEGDMA, Mn: 550). C20 presents a melting temperature of 37 °C and a latent heat of 232 J/g. However, C20 is highly incompatible with the PEGDMA matrix, which leads to phase separation processes that produce leakage when melting. Hence, encapsulation in a polymer shell obtained by emulsion polymerization of ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA, MW 198) is proposed in order to obtain a material with PCM properties that can be easily dispersed in liquid reactive monomers for further polymerization by visible light at room temperature.