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Similarly , Pentzer and her team first combined light-sensitive liquid resins with a phase-changing paraffin wax powder to create a new 3D printable ink composite , enhancing the production process for building materials containing PCMs and eliminating several steps , including encapsulation .
The resin / PCM mixture is soft , paste-like , and malleable , making it ideal for 3D printing but not for building structures . Hence , by using a light-sensitive resin , they cured it with an ultraviolet light to solidify the 3D printable paste , making it suitable for real-world applications .
Additionally , they found that the phase-changing wax embedded within the resin was not affected by the ultraviolet light and made up 70 % of the printed structure . This is a higher percentage when compared to most currently available materials being used in industry .
Next , they tested the thermoregulation of their phasechanging composites by 3D printing a small-scale house-shaped model and measuring the temperature inside the house when it was placed in an oven . Their analysis showed that the model ’ s temperature differed by 40 % compared to outside temperatures for both heating and cooling thermal cycles when compared to models made from traditional materials .
In the future , the researchers will experiment with different phase-change materials apart from paraffin wax so that these composites can operate at broader temperature ranges and manage more thermal energy during a given cycle .
The resin / PCM mixture is soft , paste-like , and malleable , making it ideal for 3D printing but not for building structures .
“ We ’ re excited about the potential of our material to keep buildings comfortable while reducing energy consumption ,” said Dr Peiran Wei , research scientist in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Soft Matter Facility . “ We can combine multiple PCMs with different melting temperatures and precisely distribute them into various areas of a single printed object to function throughout all four seasons and across the globe .” RACA
Source : Texas A & M University
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RACA Journal I September 2021 www . hvacronline . co . za