Preparation and thermal property of a tetradecane-octanoic acid eutectic phase change material

A new binary organic phase change material with a phase change temperature of 0~3℃ was developed. The material was mad by mixing tetradecane and octanoic acid around their eutectic point predicted by a theoretical calculation, which also gave the latent heat. A differential scanning calorimeter, a step cooling curve measurement device, and a hot disk thermal analyzer were used to measure the thermal properties of the formulations. A cyclic thermal testing box was used for understanding the cycle stability of the formulations. The results showed that the eutectic point was 1.0℃ at a molar mass ratio of tetradecane to octanoic acid of 51:49 with a latent heat of 191.8 J·g^-1, and a thermal conductivity of 0.3790 W·(m·K)^-1. The phase change material was shown to have a good cycle stability:the phase change temperature was 0.9℃ and the latent heat was 191.5 J·g^-1, after 100 cycles.