Influence of temperature on the deformation behaviors of melamine-formaldehyde microcapsules containing phase change material

Melamine-formaldehyde (MF) microcapsules have been widely applied in many functional materials. Deformation behaviors are important characters determining the survival of the microcapsules during fabrication and application. In this study, yield point was acted as a parameter to evaluate the deformation of microPCMs by an effective method. A series of MF-shell microcapsules containing paraffin had been fabricated with various sizes by controlling the core material stirring rates (1000-6000 r min(-1)) and core/shell weight ratios of 1/2. It was found that the yield points of microPCMs had decreased with the increasing of temperature. The reason is that the inside pressure of core material will decrease with the increasing of temperature. A repeated thermal absorbing-releasing process also can ruin the ability of resisting deformation for microPCMs. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.