Synthesis of microcapsules filled with phase change materials (PCMs)

• Main Author: You, Shi Mei.
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering::Energy conservation
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/39766
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

As the consumption of fossil fuel increases due to the rapid development of technology and civilization, alarm had raised in the environmental and climate issue. Due to the fast depletion rate of fossil fuel, energy has become increasingly expensive. Thus, high demand in energy saving is important. Phase Change Materials (PCMs) microcapsules are one of the energy saving methods which absorbed stored and released latent heat energy from the environment depending on the purpose of usage. This project will be exploring the performance of the synthesis of microcapsules filled with phase change material. Extensive research was done on microcapsules containing PCMs and its working principle. The purposes of the testing equipments to characterize the microcapsules were also being studied. Two sets of PCMs microcapsules consisting of three experiments each are carried out. Each set was produced using 3 different agitation rates at 1000 RPM, 1500 RPM and 2000 RPM. The two sets of experiment make use of silicon oil and paraffin wax as the core material whereby the other parameters were kept unchanged. Experiments are carried out on the two sets of PCMs microcapsules to compare the capabilities of the microcapsules produced using different core materials at different agitation rates. From the experiment results, it has been shown that the production of PCMs microcapsules is successful and the increase in the agitation rates will give a better control over the size distribution of the microcapsules. The used of PCMs microcapsule has been beneficial in different sectors and should be encouraged.