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Updated: Jul 24, 2025

Asymmetric Thermoelectrochemical Cell for Harvesting Low-grade Heat under Isothermal Operation
Published on: February 5, 2020
Palmitic acid/expanded graphite/CuS composite phase change materials toward efficient thermal storage and
Ying-Jie Huo1,2, Ting Yan1,2, Zhi-Hui Li1,2
1College of Energy and Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai University of Electric Power, Shanghai 200090, China. yt81725@126.com.
Abstract:
In this study, an expanded graphite (EG) with nano-CuS (EG/CuS) support material with a special morphology was prepared, with EG/CuS filled with different ratios of palmitic acid (PA). Finally, a PA/EG/CuS composite phase change thermal storage material with photothermal conversion performance was synthesized. The superb chemical and thermal stability of PA/EG/CuS was demonstrated by characterization and analysis of the experiments. EG, a multi-layer structured material, provides rich binding sites for PA and nano-CuS and constructs rich thermal conductivity paths, which effectively improves the thermal conductivity of PA/EG/CuS. It is noted that the maximum thermal conductivity of PA/EG/CuS reached 0.372 W m-1 K-1 and the maximum phase change thermal storage capacity reached 260.4 kJ kg-1, which proved the excellent thermal storage properties of PA/EG/CuS. In addition, PA/EG/CuS exhibits excellent photothermal conversion performance, and the experimental results demonstrated that the best photothermal conversion efficiency of PA/EG/CuS reached 81.4%. The PA/EG/CuS developed in this study provides a promising method for fabricating excellent conductive and low leakage composite phase change materials for solar energy utilization and energy storage.
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