Preparation of Carbon Foam Composite Phase Change Materials and Study of the Photo-Thermal Property

As research on phase change materials advances for solar energy applications, composite PCMs face growing demands for enhanced thermal conductivity, mechanical strength, and heat transfer efficiency. In this work, a porous carbon skeleton derived from phenolic resin offers over 1 MPa compressive strength and high-temperature stability. After impregnation with polyethylene glycol, the resulting composite phase change material exhibits a thermal conductivity of 0.79 W/(m·K), four times that of pure PEG, together with good thermal stability and 66.2% photothermal conversion efficiency. Graphical