Heat capacities of some sugar alcohols as phase change materials for thermal energy storage applications

In recent years, sugar alcohols have attracted much attention due to their remarkable phase change properties for thermal energy storage applications. The thermodynamic properties especially the heat capacities would play a crucial role in theoretically and technically investigating the energy storage performance for sugar alcohols. However, as far as we known, the heat capacities of sugar alcohols have never been studied in a wide temperature region. In this study, we have measured the heat capacities of six sugar alcohols of D-mannitol, Myo-Inositol, xylitol, D-arabinitol, L-arabinitol and erythritol in the temperature range from T   =   (1.9 to 550) K for the first time using a combination of Physical Property Measurement System and differential scanning calorimeter. Based on the heat capacity curve fitting, the standard molar heat capacity, entropy and enthalpy at 298.15   K and 0.1   MPa, and melting temperature and transition enthalpy in the solid–liquid phase transition region were consequently obtained for these sugar alcohols. Moreover, the heat capacity and phase transition properties obtained in this work were also compared with previous results reported in literature.