Morphology and thermal properties of electrospun fatty acids/polyethylene terephthalate composite fibers as novel form-stable phase change materials

The ultrafine fibers based on the composites of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and a series of fatty acids, lauric acid (LA), myristic acid (MA), palmitic acid (PA), and stearic acid (SA), were prepared successfully via electrospinning as form-stable phase change materials (PCMs). The morphology and thermal properties of the composite fibers were studied by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), respectively. It was found that the average fiber diameter increased generally with the content of fatty acid (LA) in the LA/PET composite fibers. The fibers with the low mass ratio maintained cylindrical shape with smooth surface while the quality became worse when the mass ratio is too high (more than 100/100). Moreover, the latent heat of the composite fibers increased with the increase of LA content and the phase transition temperature of the fibers have no obvious variations compared with LA. In contrast, both the latent heat and phase transition temperature of the fatty acid/PET composite fibers varied with the type of the fatty acids, and could be well maintained after 100 heating-cooling thermal cycles, which demonstrated that the composite fibers had good thermal stability and reliability. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.