Sugarcane derived carbon@CuS-octadecanol composite phase change materials for efficient solar thermal storage

Biomass carbon has the advantage of a wide spectral absorption range, which makes it great potential for solar thermal utilization. In this study, porous skeleton support materials of sugarcane-derived carbon were prepared by freeze-drying-high-temperature carbonization method using natural sugarcane as raw material, and the characterization results demonstrate that the porous skeleton of sugarcane-derived carbon has outstanding porous support properties. By combining CuS with sugarcane-derived carbon, a porous material with outstanding photothermal conversion performance was synthesized. Four photo-thermal composite phase change materials (CPCMs) were prepared, the maximum loading mass of the support material C600 to the phase change materials (PCMs) reached 79.77 %. The C600-CuS-OC had excellent thermal storage properties with an enthalpy of melting of 276.3 J/g and a thermal conductivity of 0.61 Wm(-1)center dot K-1. The photo-thermal conversion efficiency of C600-CuS-OC was 83.2 %. Sugarcane carbon-based CPCMs are a low-cost and high-efficiency solar thermal storage material, which has great potential for applications in solar thermal storage, biomass utilization, and thermal management.