MICROENCAPSULATION OF BIO-DEGRADABLE PCM USING COCONUT OIL AND ETHYL CELULOSE

Over the few past decades, preparation of uniform microparticles has received a great interest in the textile area to add new functionalities to the textile fabric. Amongst them, thermal insulation textile and more specially microencapsulation of phase change materials (PCMs) have attracted more and more attention in recent years. In an latent heat thermal energy storage system, energy is stored during the melting, and recovered during the freezing, of phase change material (PCM). It plays an important role in solving energy imbalance, by improving thermal efficiency and protecting the environment. The aim of this study is obtaining bio-degradable PCM which shell is Ethly cellulose and active agent is coconut oil by using solvent evaporation as a microencansulation method. In order to microencapsulation with solvent evaporation method: we have prepared 4 different combinations of emulsions by changing the amount of ethyl cellulose and coconut oil. We examined the samples obtained by scanning electron microscope (SEM) to see how the ratio of materials used as active agent and shell play a role in microcapsule formation. SEM analysis showed that we obtained significative results when we use ethyl cellulose and coconut oil in a ratio of 1: 1, we obtain the spherical microcapsules.