Graphene wrapped wood-based phase change composite for efficient electro-thermal energy conversion and storage

With the increasing importance of electronic devices in modern industry, considerable efforts have been devoted to solving the problem that the electronic devices fail to work normally in a cold environment. Herein, we designed and fabricated a graphene wrapped wood-based phase change composite with electro-thermal conversion and energy storage capabilities by delignification of natural wood, coverage and reduction of graphene oxide (GO), impregnation of 1-tetradecanol (TD) and package of epoxy resin. The phase change composite exhibited large latent heat of fusion (218.5 J/g), excellent shape stability with high TD packing content of 88.4% and favorable reliability even after 50 heating–cooling cycles. More importantly, the Joule heat conversed by the rGO layer under voltage was able to quickly transfer to the surrounded TD, leading to the increase of the overall temperature of the composite and the efficient storage of energy. The findings conceivably stand out a sustainable strategy to fabricate an electrically driven wood-based phase change composite for preheating and heat preservation of electronics.