Enhanced thermal conductivity and shape stability of polyethylene glycol-based phase change materials with MXene and Poly(phenol-amine)-modified melamine foam

Phase change materials (PCMs) can efficiently absorb and release energy while keeping the temperature constant, and thus exhibiting great potential in thermal management applications. However, issues such as liquid phase leakage and poor thermal conductivity of PCMs, particularly prominent in organic ones, have limited their practical application. In this work, we employed polyethylene glycol (PEG) with the phase change temperature of 61.72 °C as PCMs. A poly(phenol-amine) was synthesized via the Schiff base reactions or Michael-type additions using low-cost Catechol and Diethylenetriamine, and was applied to modify the surface of melamine foam (MF). The abundant polar groups and aromatic rings in the poly(phenol-amine) enable strong interactions with both MF and PEG. Additionally, MXene was incorporated to further improve the thermal conductivity of the composite phase change materials (CPCMs). The results demonstrated that the modified MF/MXene/PEG based CPCMs showed negligible leakage when tested at 80 °C for 1 h. They also exhibited an enhanced thermal conductivity of 0.55 ± 0.01 W/m·K with an enthalpy value of 186.4 J/g. Moreover, after 100th thermal cycling and reprocessing, the crystallization behavior and phase transition capability of the CPCMs remained almost unchanged. Furthermore, the introduction of MXene markedly enhanced CPCMs’ light absorption efficiency. These findings indicate that the prepared CPCMs, with their excellent thermal performance, hold substantial potential in energy storage and thermal management applications. Graphical