Homogeneous-to-Heterogeneous-Strategy Enables Multifunctional Phase-Change Materials for Energy Storage

Functional phase-change materials (PCMs) are conspicuously absent in various organic or inorganic solids with diversified applications in which the attributes of these molecular materials have been highly realized. Leakage problem during the phase transition process is the main obstacle on the way of widely use of solid-liquid PCMs who has been recognized to be promisingly practical candidates for energy storage owing to the high energy storage density and small volume change in the phase transition process. Herein, a novel homogeneous-to-heterogeneous-strategy, in which all the starting materials involved display a homogeneous state and the encapsulation framework formed in situ in the encapsulation process, enabled by an aerogel reaction of silica was realized under the catalysis of an organic base. Besides the comprehensive study upon energy storage performance, light-to-thermal conversion and recyclability performance study of the obtained materials reveal the clear superiority over pristine paraffin wax (PW) thanks to the versatility and robustness of this fabrication method. More importantly, the homogeneous-to-heterogeneous-strategy endows a unique adsorption ability with respect to organic pollutant due to the PCMs inside and therefore bearing a great potential to be used in environment protection fields.