Renewable organic phase change materials for latent heat thermal energy storage applications: Diesters of sebacic acid

Investigations on development of new renewable phase change materials are important studies to increase the number of available materials for thermal utilization. In this sense, the diesters of sebacic acid (decandioic acid) have been synthesized and characterized for thermal applications. They include the diesters of 1-decanol, 1-dodecanol and 1-hexadecanol with decandioic acid. They have been specifically investigated for their thermo-physical properties to draw attention to their possible use in applications. Fourier transform infrared, gas chromatography mass spectrometry and elemental analyses were carried out for chemical characterization of the resultant structures. With the aid of the differential scanning calorimeter and thermogravimetric analyzer, detailed thermal properties, including phase change temperatures, specific heat and enthalpy values, thermal decomposition and thermal reliability, have been reported with related statistical calculations. The differential scanning calorimeter data showed that the melting onset temperature points of the diesters are between 30 °C and 58 °C and they have enthalpy higher than 185 kJ/kg, which are appropriate for thermal energy storage applications.