Effective synthesis methods of potential phase change materials from renewable resources

Energy has become an increasingly important issue in recent years, and the gap between consumption and production has been increasing. To reduce the dependency on fossil fuels causing environmental problems, the development of energy storage systems with the trend towards renewable energy sources offers excellent advantages in energy. Thermal energy storage systems created by making use of the sun, which is an efficient resource, provide considerable increases in energy efficiency. Phase Change Materials (PCM), which ensures that heat energy is stored and used when needed, has attracted significant interest from both the academic and the industrial community in recent years. PCMs are used in different areas of food, textile, construction, electronics, health, and many more. Fatty acid esters constitute the largest and most exciting class in organic-based solid-liquid PCMs. Synthesis of fatty acid esters, which are used under the green energy title and have superior properties compared to other courses, by the principles of green chemistry strengthens the link between green chemistry and green energy. For this purpose, synthesis of diesters known to have significant PCM potential and thia-wax esters whose PCM properties have not been previously studied in the literature has carried out by green chemistry. Using the new Brønsted acid character ionic liquid catalyst synthesized within the scope of the study, esterification and transesterification reactions in solvent-free medium and high-efficiency esters were synthesized. Reaction optimization studies carried out to increase ester yields and esters were isolated from the reaction medium by a simple method such as crystallization. Large-scale synthesis, catalyst recovery, and reusability studies conducted to investigate the synthesis processes developed and the suitability of the catalyst for industrial use. In this study, the chemical structures of all synthesized esters illuminated by spectroscopic methods such as 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and FTIR. In the thermal analysis of thia-wax esters, which examined for the first time as PCM, it found that the melting phase transition points ranged between 37 and 62 ᴼC and the melting enthalpies were above 170 kJ/kg. In line with these results, it has concluded that thia-wax esters that do not show overcooling behavior are suitable as potential PCM.