Preparation and Performance Analysis of a New Methanol-Mixed Gel Fuel Applied in Chemical Energy Storage

The development of green and low-carbon new energy is one of the effective ways to deal with environmental pollution and climate change. Methanol, as an electrocatalytic product, is an excellent energy source and fuel. However, liquid methanol poses issues such as volatility, flammability, and explosiveness during use and long-term storage. This study presented a new methanol-sodium stearate-water-mixed gel. The performance of this mixed gel as a methanol energy storage carrier was evaluated. The results indicated that the gel points of the mixed gel increased with the increased contents of water and gelling agent. The maximum gel point reach approximately 35 °C, which is beneficial for reducing the requirements for the storage temperature. However, an excessive content of the gelling agent would lead to a decrease in the calorific value. The calorific value of the mixed gel containing 10% water is comparable to that of the mixed gel containing 5% gelling agent. Therefore, the scheme of adding water to increase the gel point has a better effect. Additionally, as the content of the gelling agent increased, the three-dimensional network structure formed by the interwoven fibers within the mixed gel became more compact. Meanwhile, the precipitation phenomenon of the gelling agent occurred during the gelation process, resulting in the lower structure of the mixed gel being denser than the upper structure. Therefore, in the large-scale production process of the mixed gel, the gel preparation container should be selected to be flat in shape to improve the uniformity.