Hierarchical AlN/erythritol composite phase change materials with ultra-efficient polarity-enhanced heat conduction

• Published in: Cell reports physical science 2024-11, Vol.5 (11), p.102297, Article 102297
• Main Authors: Qiu, Lin, Li, Haimo, Zhao, Jingna, Zhang, Xiaoliang, Feng, Yanhui, Zhang, Xiaohua
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: AlN-erythritol composite material; computational modeling; energy materials; hierarchically porous ceramic skeleton; interface/interphase; interfacial thermal resistance; phase change material; subcooling; surface polarity; thermal properties
• ISSN: 2666-3864; 2666-3864
• DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrp.2024.102297

It is essential to use hierarchically porous ceramics as conductive skeletons inside polymeric phase change materials (PCMs) to overcome the problem of low thermal conductivity. Actually, the interfacial thermal conductance plays a more important role in determining the phase change properties of the PCM. Here, we report a strong effect of surface polarity in improving interfacial thermal conductance. Porous aluminum nitride (AlN) is found to be an excellent skeleton for erythritol, an organic PCM. Their composition strongly reduces the degree of supercooling of erythritol from 68 to 20 K, while the porous diamond just reduces it to 29 K, despite its higher thermal conductivity. It is the polarity-enhanced AlN/erythritol adhesion that reduces the interfacial thermal resistance to one order of magnitude smaller than the diamond/erythritol contact. The overall performance can be further improved by loading nano-carbons, owing to the intimate contact between erythritol and the sp2 carbon lattice. [Display omitted] •Surface polarity reduces the AlN-erythritol interfacial thermal resistance•A theoretical basis for developing high-efficiency composite phase change materials•Surface polarity inhibits the subcooling of erythritol Qiu et al. use the strong effect of surface polarity to improve interfacial heat transport capacity and significantly reduce the interfacial thermal resistance between porous skeleton and PCM materials. It provides a theoretical basis for solving the problem of low internal thermal conductivity of hierarchically porous ceramic skeleton phase change composites.