Preparation of organic ternary phase change materials for fruit and vegetable cold chain logistics

In this paper, a novel binary eutectic phase change material (DA-HDL EPCM) and ternary composite phase change material (HDL-DA-CA/EG CPCM) are proposed for the temperature range of 10–20 °C and 2–8 °C. Compared with traditional ternary phase change materials (2–8 °C), CPCM has higher latent heat value and economic performance. The ternary CPCM uses dodecyl alcohol (DA) and 1,6 hexadiol (HDL) as the main eutectic phase change energy storage materials, and n-capric acid (CA) as the temperature modifier. A kind of HDL-DA-CA/EG composite phase change material (CPCM) was prepared by vacuum adsorption method, which solved the problems of low thermal conductivity and easy leakage of ternary CPCM. Differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), scanning electron microscope (SEM), thermal property analyzer (TCA) and high and low temperature alternating test chamber were used to characterize the thermal properties, microstructure, thermal conductivity and cyclic stability of related PCM. Experimental results: The final ratio of CPCM is 43.61%DA + 25.6%HDL + 23.08%CA + 7.7%EG, the phase transition temperature is 2.9 °C, the latent heat of phase transition is 181.3 J/g, and the thermal conductivity is 1.90 W/mK. After 500 cycles, the phase transition temperature of CPCM has little change, and the latent heat of phase transition is 169.8 J/g, which is reduced by 6.34 %, not more than 10 %, and has good stability. Finally, the simulation application data show that CPCM has a good application prospect in fruit and vegetable cold chain logistics.