SHAN Shaofei, MO Songping, JIA Lisi, CHEN Ying
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Sugar alcohols is a type of phase change materials with high latent heat for thermal energy storage. However, the supercooling degrees of sugar alcohols are high, which hinder their applications. D-mannitol, as a sugar alcohol, is promising for medium-temperature thermal energy storage. In this study, the effects of nucleating agents and thickening agents on the phase change characteristics of D-mannitol are studied by differential scanning calorimeter. Aluminum oxide and silicon carbide are selected as nucleating agents, while sodium alginate and carboxymethyl cellulose are selected as thickening agents. The morphologies of the pure D-mannitol, nucleating agents, thickening agents, and D-mannitol with individual or combined nucleating agents and thickening agent are observed. The results show that the nucleation and crystallization of D-mannitol are promoted by aluminum oxide, silicon carbide and sodium alginate of proper amounts. When the mass fraction of aluminum oxide, silicon carbide and sodium alginate is 7.0wt%, 9.0wt% and 0.5wt%, the lowest supercooling degree is obtained, which is 17.4 ℃, 12.2 ℃ and 17.3 ℃, respectively lower than that of pure D-mannitol. The combination of nucleating agent and thickener improves the nucleation and crystallization of D-mannitol compared with the addition of individual nucleating agent or thickener. When the mass fraction of aluminum oxide and sodium alginate are 5.0wt% and 1.0wt%, respectively, the supercooling degree of the sample is reduced by 19.7 ℃ compared with pure D-mannitol. When the mass fraction of silicon carbide and sodium alginate are 3.0wt% and 1.0wt%, respectively, the supercooling degree of the sample is reduced by 16.5 ℃ compared with pure D-mannitol. The mechanism for the effects of the nucleating agents and thickening agents on the phase change characteristics of D-mannitol are discussed. It is found that the thickening agents enhance the dispersion of the nucleating agents in the D-mannitol samples, thus improving the nucleation induction effects of the nucleating agents.