Microencapsulation of Thermochromic Material by Silicon Oxide Nanoparticles

Abstract

This study is mainly focused on the fabrication of SiO2 as an inorganic shell material encapsulated an organic thermochromic (TC) core material comprises of either the (i) three-component as-synthesized blue dyes [BDTCM@SiO2] or (ii) off-the-shelf (commercial) black dyes [CDTCM@SiO2]. Both the SiO2 encapsulated thermochromic systems have successfully demonstrated the color transition at around 31 °C. For the three-component thermochromic microcapsules, we have used the crystal violet lactone (CVL) as a leuco dye, bisphenol-A (BPA) as a color developer, and 1-tetradecanol (TD) as a solvent. Different ratios of the thermochromic dye and the metal oxide were prepared to examine the effect of the core@shell ratio on the microstructural and thermal properties of the encapsulated microcapsules. The mean particles sizes of the BDTCM@SiO2 are below 100 nm, whereas, the CDTCM@SiO2 samples exhibited the mean particle sizes varied in a range of 100-1000 nm. The endothermic phase transition due to melting and in general, the thermal stabilities of these SiO2 encapsulated TCMs have been explored for the purpose of deploying these systems for thermal energy savings or storage applications.