Development of vacuum impregnation equipment and preparation of mass/uniform shape-stabilized phase change materials

Various industries require production equipment for uniform mass-production short periods of time, such as in the construction industry. This study presents vacuum impregnation equipment that is capable of mass-producing uniform, shape-stabilized PCM (MUSPCM). The vacuum impregnation equipment can manufacture MUSPCM of various diameters without additional filtering and crushing process because the mixing ratio of the SSPCM was analyzed beforehand through a TGA analysis. As the result, MUSPCM using vacuum impregnation equipment can save 32.5 times based on production of 15.0 kg compared to conventional vacuum impregnation. In addition, the analysis of the thermo-physical properties and long-term stability of the MUSPCM were characterized via DSC and TGA analysis. The results indicate that a large amount of uniform MUSPCM were produced, and the long-term phase stability was excellent. Therefore, the developed vacuum impregnation equipment is expected to be useful in various industries, including construction.