Development of thermo-regulating polypropylene fibre containing microencapsulated phase change materials

Phase change materials are used for thermal management solution in textiles because of the automatic acclimatising properties of textiles. Most of the phase change materials used in textiles is usually found in the range of 28-32 degrees C of their melting point. This paper reports a type of smart monofilament fibre development incorporated with microencapsulated phase change material through melt spinning process. Up to 12% microcapsules are successfully incorporated into the polypropylene monofilament showing 9.2 J/g of latent heat. Some of the mechanical properties of the developed fibre are also studied together with the surface morphology of monofilament. A statistical model is developed for latent heat, tenacity and modulus of monofilament fibre and is validated by experimental values. The fibre properties predicted by the developed models are agreed very well to the experiments results. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.