Ultraflexible, cost-effective and scalable polymer-based phase change composites via chemical cross-linking for wearable thermal management

Phase change materials (PCMs) offer great potential for realizing zero-energy thermal management due to superior thermal storage and stable phase-change temperatures. However, liquid leakage and solid rigidity of PCMs are long-standing challenges for PCM-based wearable thermal regulation. Here, we report a facile and cost-effective chemical cross-linking strategy to develop ultraflexible polymer-based phase change composites with a dual 3D crosslinked network of olefin block copolymers (OBC) and styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene (SEBS) in paraffin wax (PW). The C-C bond-enhanced OBC-SEBS networks synergistically improve the mechanical, thermal, and leakage-proof properties of PW@OBC-SEBS. Notably, the proposed…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: 52038009, 52293412, 52108097
• CP
  China Postdoctoral Science Foundation
• SJ
  Southwest Jiaotong University
• SU
  Sichuan University