Study of a novel hollow ceramsite compounded with paraffin phase change materials for energy storage

[Display omitted] •A customized PCM carrier was prepared, and it showed good physical properties.•Hollow ceramsite (HC) adsorbed large quantities of PCMs in their cavities.•The hollow structure of the ceramsite inhibited leakage by HC/PCM components.•HC/PCM components showed good thermal performance and chemical reliability. This paper describes a novel PCM carrier (hollow ceramsite, HC) with custom properties and reproducible to achieve good physical and desirable thermal performance. HC is composed of a shell and internal cavity formed during high-temperature sintering; PCMs were adsorbed into the cavity to prepare HC/PCM components and the shells were strong to prevent destroy of the ceramsite, impede losses of PCM. The physical properties of HC and conventional ceramsite (CC) prepared at different sintering temperatures were measured, the leakage of CC/PCM and HC/PCM components after 500 thermal cycles and exposing at 50 °C were characterized, and the thermal energy storage density (Des) values of CC/PCM and HC/PCM components after thermal cycling were calculated. The results revealed that HC has high strength, light weight and high PCM adsorption capacity of approximately 3.25–7.6 MPa, 543.8–575.9 g/mm3 and 54.88–32.21%, respectively. The pore structure of the shell layer reduced PCM leakage to a desirable level and the Des values of HC/PCM components in the temperature range 10 °C-50 °C were 101.23–113.68 J/g and the latent heats were 57.88–70.28 J/g. The development of this novel ceramsite provides a possible means to overcome the gaps between research, development and implementation of phase change aggregates.