The shell materials of the existing microcapsule phase change materials (PCMs) are always not PCMs, so the enthalpy change (ΔH) in the phase transition processes of these microcapsule PCMs is much smaller compared with the pure encapsulated PCMs (the core materials), reducing the storage ability for thermal energy of the microcapsules. Herein, we prepared microcapsules composed of stearic acid (SA) core and polyethylene glycol (PEG)-based shell as a microcapsule PCM. The PEG-based shell is a solid-solid PCM with cross-linked network, which is in solid state even at 80 C, avoiding the leakage and lose of the whole microcapsule PCM. Additionally, the microcapsule PCM has high ΔH of 113.4 and 115.3 J g −1 during their solidification and melting procedures respectively, displaying outstanding storage capacity for thermal energy. The microcapsule PCM shows dual temperature range in the melting/solidification process resulting in a wide effective temperature range, and has better thermal stability than pure SA. Moreover, the thermal property of the microcapsules changes a little after 100 times of thermal cycling, indicating high thermal reliability of the material.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.