Emerging phase change cold storage gel originated from calcium chloride hexahydrate

With the growth of human demand for cold energy, phase change cold storage technology has received widespread attention, and phase change cold storage materials as its core need a breakthrough. In this study, a phase change cold storage material suitable for cold chain transportation with CaCl2·6H2O as the main system was successfully prepared. The synergistic mechanism of phase change temperature regulation of CaCl2·6H2O by urea and NH4Cl was explored, and the subcooling phenomenon was overcome by adding SrCl2·6H2O to prepare the phase change cold storage material matrix CUNS3. Based on this, hydrophilic fumed silica and titanium dioxide nanoparticles were added to overcome the problems of phase separation and low thermal conductivity of CUNS3, and both were used creatively to slightly regulate its phase change temperature, thus optimizing the latent heat of phase change. The melting phase change temperature of the gel-like CUNS3-FS5-TDN2 synthesized was adjusted to 8.15 °C, and the latent heat of phase change was optimized to 93.80 J g−1, with a thermal conductivity 25.3 % higher than that of CUNS3-FS5, and the excellent phase change characteristics were maintained after 500 cycles. Finally, the fruit storage experiments showed that CUNS3-FS5-TDN2 was valuable for practical cold chain transportation applications.