Shape-stabilized phase change materials with high phase change enthalpy based on synthetic comb-like poly(acrylonitrile-co-ethylene glycol) for thermal management

Shape-stabilized poly(acrylonitrile-co-ethylene glycol) (PANEG) copolymer with comb-like structure was prepared via simple free-radical solution polymerization, where acrylic acid poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether ester (MPEGA) and acrylonitrile (AN) were employed as monomers. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), 1H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H and 13C NMR), wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WXAD) were used to characterize the chemical structure of resultant PANEG. In addition, the influences of MPEGA contents on energy storage performance, thermal reliability and thermal stability of PANEG materials were evaluated based on differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), polarizing optical microscopy (POM), thermal infrared imager and thermogravimetry analyzer (TG). The comb-like PANEG demonstrated a favorable temperature regulation performance and thermal reliability. With the increase of MPEGA contents, the enthalpy of PANEG increased, and when the content of MPEGA was 80 wt%, the phase change enthalpy of synthesized PANEG-80 reached to 106.70 J/g with a stable heat storage performance after 100 thermal cycling. Thermal infrared images and cooling curves revealed that synthetic PANEG could sustain a temperature in ranges of 22–31 °C for continuous 25 min, presenting excellent temperature regulation performance. Also, comb-like PANEG could be uniformly dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), indicating that PANEG phase change fibers with potential applications in fields of intelligent thermoregulating textile and heat energy management could be obtained via one-step wet spinning.