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Phase change materials (PCMs) require an excellent matrix support material such as porous carbon materials. Orange peel, a discarded, readily available raw material, could potentially be used to prepare biological porous carbon material (BPCM) with abundant pores of uniform size and strong loading capacity through a vacuum freeing method and a carbonization process under nitrogen atmosphere. Herein, paraffin (PA) was encapsulated into BPCM by vacuum impregnation method to obtain environmentally friendly; recyclable PA/carbonized-abandoned orange peel (CAOP) shape-stable PCMs (PA/CAOP SS-PCMs). CAOP was composed of amorphous carbon and a certain degree of graphitization occurred, the best of which was observed following carbonization at 1000 °C. Further, at this temperature, the pores were abundant and PA loading was sufficient. PA/CAOP SS-PCMs were shown to undergo simple physical loading with no chemical interactions and to have good thermal stability and a maximum loading percentage of 88.46%; the calculated maximum loading percentage was of 88.07%. The temperature and latent heat during the melting of PA/CAOP SS-PCMs were 47.68 °C and 180.25 J/g, respectively, and the solidification process occurred 34.47 °C and 177.55 J/g, respectively. The composite exhibited excellent thermal stability and reliability after 200 thermal cycles. Therefore, it has very broad application prospects and value in the fields of energy saving and emission reduction, including solar energy, air conditioning storage cooling systems, and building cladding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon felt composites were prepared by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method using Ni(NO3)2as a catalyst and methane as a pyrocarbon precursor. The pyrocarbon which has been deposited on fiber surface increased gradually with increase in deposition temperature. Besides, the surface of the deposited pyrocarbon was seen to contain many micropores. The phenol-adsorption capability evaluation of the composites showed that the adsorption equilibrium was achieved in 90 min, and the maximum adsorption quantity reached was 13.37 mg/g. The Langmuir isotherm model was preferred in fitting the adsorption data compared with the Freundilch isotherm model. The theoretical maximum adsorption was calculated to be 17.45 mg/g. At pH = 5, the adsorption quantity was a minimum of 10.66 mg/g. Moreover, the phenol-adsorption quantity increased with increasing deposition temperature. The adsorption quantity on carbon felt composites without pyrolytic carbon deposition was minimum, being 9.11 mg/g, while that of carbon fiber produced at 950°C reached the maximum of 13.37 mg/g. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]