Significant enhancement in local thermal conductivity of erythritol at interface with nanoparticles due to their interaction

When nano-fillers are used to enhance the thermal conductivity of organic phase change materials (PCMs), the naturally formed interface is considered to hinder thermal transport of the composite PCMs. However, the effect of the interface on the thermal properties of surrounding PCM has not been fully studied. In this paper, three composite PCMs (Ery@SiC, Ery@SiO₂ and Ery@Si₃N₄) were prepared by melt-blending method. The local thermal conductivity and reduced Young’s modulus (E*) of the erythritol at the interface and far away from the interface in the composite PCMs were simultaneously measured by scanning thermal microscopy (SThM). The results revealed significant enhancement in local thermal conductivity of erythritol at the interface and its obvious positive correlation with E*. For different composite PCMs, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations suggested that the increase in intrinsic thermal conductivity and E* of erythritol is attributed to the increase in interaction energy between erythritol and nanoparticles, as more erythritol phonon vibrations transform from localized mode to delocalized mode and erythritol has a higher density at the interface. These findings will provide new ideas for the design of PCM for energy storage.