Novel commercial organic Phase Change Materials (PCMs) for low temperature thermal energy storage applications

Thermal energy storage applications require readily available commercial PCMs in bulk mass which satisfy several thermal requirements for thermal energy storage. In this sense, the investigations on thermal properties of commercial products which have been readily used for other purposes gain more importance in order to introduce new bulk materials as novel commercial PCMs in the field of energy storage. In this research, three commercial products of Cognis Chemicals (part of BASF) which have been currently used in cosmetics industry were investigated from the perspective of thermal energy storage. The presented commercial products had the main compositions of ethylene glycol monostearate, ethylene glycol distearate and hexadecyl hexadecanoate (cetyl palmitate) with the trade names of Cutina EGMS, Cutina AGS and Cutina CP, respectively. FT-IR spectrometer and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) were used for chemical and thermal analyses. Phase change temperature, enthalpy and thermal reliability after 1000 thermal cycles were given with necessary statistical data to clarify the thermal properties of the materials. The DSC analyses indicated that the melting temperatures of the commercial products were between 44°C and 60°C with phase change enthalpy above 180 kJ/kg. The results showed that they were favorable for low temperature heat transfer and thermal energy storage applications.