Advance in Nanocomposite Phase Change Materials

A special issue of Nanomaterials (ISSN 2079-4991). This special issue belongs to the section "Nanocomposite Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2023) | Viewed by 1461

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Organic–Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
Interests: energy chemistry and physics; phase change materials; microencapsulation technology; multifunctional phase-change microcapsules; heat energy storage; thermal management.
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Phase change materials (PCMs) are a family of chemical substances able to absorb or release large quantities of latent-heat thermal energy at a constant temperature by undergoing a phase transformation. PCMs have considerably higher thermal energy-storage densities in comparison to sensible heat-storage materials and can effectively improve energy efficiency by bridging the gap between energy availability and energy use, thus reducing energy waste. As a type of promising sustainable energy materials, PCMs have not only been applied in renewable energy effective utilization such as solar thermal energy and low-temperature waste heat utilization such as industrial waste heat and waste heat from combined cooling, heating, and power systems, but also broadly used for thermal regulation and thermal management in the fields of photovoltaic–thermoelectric systems, pharmaceutical or biological products requiring cool storage, temperature-sensitive electronic parts or devices requiring cool or thermal protection, telecom shelters in tropical regions, energy-saving buildings, smart fibers and textiles with a thermoregulatory function, thermal buffering of Li-ion batteries, thermal comfort in vehicles, and many more.

In recent years, the functionalization of PCMs for multipurpose applications through nanocompositing or nanoencapsulation has received a great deal of attention from both the academic and industrial communities. Through innovative designs and fabrication in the nanoscale, PCMs can attain the additional functionality of photocatalysis, antibiosis, magnetism, electrical conduction, photoluminescence, and many more in addition to heat energy storage and thermal management.

This Special Issue of Nanomaterials aims to cover the most recent advances in nanostructured PCMs and relevant technologies, including but not limited to material design, fabrications, physical and chemical characterizations, and applications. Novel works on structure design for the functionality of PCMs in nanoscale for multipurpose applications are of interest. We invite original papers in various formats, including full papers, communications, and reviews. The potential topics are as follows:

  • Innovative design of nanostructured PCMs and their composites;
  • Nano-/microencapsulation of PCMs with enhanced thermal performance and additional functions;
  • Nanofabrication and nanostructural control of PCMs at the nanoscale;
  • New structures and new functions of PCMs in nanoscale;
  • Simulation analysis of PCMs in nanoscale of nanomaterials;
  • Multifunctional designs and multipurpose application of PCMs in nanoscale;
  • Environmentally friendly fabrication of nanostructured PCMs with multifunctions;
  • Other recent advances in nanostructured PCMs for multipurpose applications.

Prof. Dr. Xiaodong Wang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • innovative design of nanostructured PCMs and their composites
  • nano/microencapsulation of PCMs with enhanced thermal performance and additional functions
  • nanofabrication and nanostructural control of PCMs at the nanoscale
  • new structures and new functions of PCMs in nanoscale
  • simulation analysis of PCMs in nanoscale of nanomaterials
  • multifunctional designs and multipurpose application of PCMs in nanoscale
  • environmentally friendly fabrication of nanostructured PCMs with multifunctions
  • other recent advances in nanostructured PCMs for multipurpose applications

Published Papers (2 papers)

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12 pages, 3550 KiB  
Article
Ultra-Compact and Broadband Nano-Integration Optical Phased Array
by Zhicheng Wang, Junbo Feng, Haitang Li, Yuqing Zhang, Yilu Wu, Yuqi Hu, Jiagui Wu and Junbo Yang
Nanomaterials 2023, 13(18), 2516; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano13182516 - 8 Sep 2023
Viewed by 960
Abstract
The on-chip nano-integration of large-scale optical phased arrays (OPAs) is a development trend. However, the current scale of integrated OPAs is not large because of the limitations imposed by the lateral dimensions of beam-splitting structures. Here, we propose an ultra-compact and broadband OPA [...] Read more.
The on-chip nano-integration of large-scale optical phased arrays (OPAs) is a development trend. However, the current scale of integrated OPAs is not large because of the limitations imposed by the lateral dimensions of beam-splitting structures. Here, we propose an ultra-compact and broadband OPA beam-splitting scheme with a nano-inverse design. We employed a staged design to obtain a T-branch with a wavelength bandwidth of 500 nm (1300–1800 nm) and an insertion loss of −0.2 dB. Owing to the high scalability and width-preserving characteristics, the cascaded T-branch configuration can significantly reduce the lateral dimensions of an OPA, offering a potential solution for the on-chip integration of a large-scale OPA. Based on three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (3D FDTD) simulations, we demonstrated a 1 × 16 OPA beam-splitter structure composed entirely of inverse-designed elements with a lateral dimension of only 27.3 μm. Additionally, based on the constructed grating couplers, we simulated the range of the diffraction angle θ for the OPA, which varied by 0.6°–41.6° within the wavelength range of 1370–1600 nm. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advance in Nanocomposite Phase Change Materials)
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21 pages, 9047 KiB  
Article
Modeling and Experiments of Droplet Evaporation with Micro or Nano Particles in Coffee Ring or Coffee Splat
by Hongbing Xiong, Qichao Wang, Lujie Yuan, Junkai Liang and Jianzhong Lin
Nanomaterials 2023, 13(10), 1609; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano13101609 - 11 May 2023
Viewed by 1474
Abstract
Experimental and numerical experiments were carried out to study the coffee rings or coffee splats formed by droplet evaporation with micro or nano polystyrene sphere particles (Dp = 10 μm or 100 nm). Particle image velocimetry (PIV) and a high-resolution camera [...] Read more.
Experimental and numerical experiments were carried out to study the coffee rings or coffee splats formed by droplet evaporation with micro or nano polystyrene sphere particles (Dp = 10 μm or 100 nm). Particle image velocimetry (PIV) and a high-resolution camera were used in this experiment, along with a temperature-controlled heater and a data-acquisition computer. The results showed that a nano particle could form a homogeneous coffee splat, instead of the common coffee ring formed when using micro particles. In order to account for this phenomenon, this paper developed a complex multiphase model, one which included the smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) fluid model coupled with the van der Waals equation of state for droplet evaporation, the rigid particle model of finite-size micro particles, and the point–particle model of the nanometer particles. The numerical simulation was operated on a GPU-based algorithm and tested by four validation cases. A GPU could calculate 533 times the speed of a single-core CPU for about 300,000 particles. The results showed that, for rigid solid particles, the forms emerged spontaneously on the wall, and their structure was mainly affected by the boundary wettability, and less affected by the fluid flow and thermal condition. When the wall temperature was low, it was easier for the particles to be deposited on the contact line. At high wall temperature, the coffee ring effect would be weakened, and the particles were more likely to be deposited in the droplet center. The hydrophilic surface produced a larger coffee ring compared to the hydrophobic surface. The experimental and numerical results proved that particle size could play a significant role during the particle deposition, which may be a possible route for producing uniform-distributed and nano-structure coatings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advance in Nanocomposite Phase Change Materials)
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