Ternary mixture of fatty acids as phase change materials for thermal energy storage applications

The present study deals with the development of ternary mixtures of fatty acids for low temperature thermal energy storage applications. The commercial grade fatty acids such as Capric Acid (CA), Lauric Acid (LA), Palmitic Acid (PA) and Stearic Acid (SA), have been used to prepare stable, solid–liquid phase change material (PCM) for the same. In this regard, a series of ternary mixture i.e. CA-LA-SA (CLS) and CA-PA-SA (CPS) have been developed with different weight percentages. Thermal characteristics of these developed ternary mixture i.e. melting temperature and latent heat of fusion have been measured by using Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) technique. The synthesized materials are found to have melting temperature in the range of 14-21 °C (along with adequate amount of latent heat of fusion), which may be quite useful for several low temperature thermal energy storage applications.