Soft-hard complex microsphere strategy to construct high-temperature form-stable phase change material for melt-spun temperature-regulating fibers

Phase change materials (PCMs) have excellent temperature regulation ability and are usually used in smart wearable devices. However, PCMs prepared by traditional methods cannot be applied to high-temperature (>230 °C) melt spinning, and leakage of PCM is prone to occur during spinning. This work successfully prepared a series of PCMs with high thermal form-stable by the strategy of capillary adsorption of inorganic porous materials and surface microchemical crosslinking and proved that it can effectively solve the above-mentioned problems of high-temperature melt-spinning temperature regulating fibers. This PCM prepared by combining porous SiO2 adsorption and chemical crosslinking of polyethylene glycol derivatives exhibits excellent heat resistance at 130 °C for 40 min. In addition, polycaprolactam (PA6) was selected as the polymer matrix, and PA6-based temperature regulating fibers with excellent temperature regulating functions were prepared. The thermal response time of the fabric prepared from this fiber in the hot environment is 782 s, and the maximum temperature difference is 5.4 °C. Moreover, the exothermic duration in cold environment is 427 s, and the maximum temperature difference is 2.3 °C. This shows that the prepared temperature regulating fiber has good application prospect in heat-regulating devices.