In the recent years, the demand of green industry is to limit the usage of petroleum based chemicals since their increasing consumption is posing critical environmental problems, including rapid climate change, water pollution and harmful gas emissions along with threatening global-economy due to their high costs. Furthermore, it is important to realise that fossil raw materials and finite resources will deplete within a few generations, so using petroleum-based polymers should be avoided. In previous literature, the commonly used petroleum-based polymers to encapsulate phase change materials (PCMs) were melamine-formaldehyde, urea-formaldehyde, urea-melamine-formaldehyde, polystyrene, styrene, polyurethane and polyurea. Nanocellulose which is a biopolymer could be used instead since it is environmentally friendly and in the past it has proven to possess significant advancements in research and their applications in different fields. Technologies are yet to be developed to form shape-stabilized PCMs with nanocellulose and their incorporation in building systems.
Objectives of the research
Common problems arising in PCMs is leakage during the phase transition process which tends to limit their applications in various fields including thermal energy storage, solar energy storage, building materials and textiles. However, this problem can be solved through the formation of shape-stabilized PCMs, which involves either integration of PCM into a supporting material or microencapsulating PCM into a shell material which results in the formation of namely composite PCMs and microencapsulated PCMs. The specific objectives of the project may be summarised as follows:
In this project shape-stabilized PCMs based on nanocellulose polymer will be developed by employing a feasible method to produce either PCM composites or microcapsules/ nanocapsules.
Suitable type of PCM for building materials will be selected from previous literature i.e. PCM that exhibits desired characteristics such as high latent heat value and moreover, should be environmentally friendly.
Development of functionalised biopolymer: Nanocellulose polymer will be developed from nanocellulose extracted from selected cellulosic material. The polymer will be further functionalised for the required properties for building materials, in addition to the encapsulation of the designated PCM to produce microcapsules or composites.
PCM based construction materials will be developed. Various processes will be investigated to ensure the effective incorporation, stabilisation and efficiency of energy storage.