A novel covalent polymerized phase change composite with integrated shape memory, self-healing, electromagnetic shielding and multi-drive thermal management functions

Superiorities in the stability and pliability of phase change material (PCM) promote its application fields in thermal storage dramatically. In this work, a covalent polymerized phase change composite (Hexamethylene diisocyanate trimer (HDIT) @ polyethyleneglycol (PEG)) with shape memory, self-healing effect, electromagnetic interference shielding (EMI), and integrated thermal management functions was designed via a facile hot-press process. The [email protected] covalent network captured unreacted PEG by forming hydrogen bond with exposed hydroxyl groups (–OH) of PEG, the trapped PEG can still exert the properties of absorbing or releasing latent heat, as well as the sufficient enthalpy (134 J/g) can effectively support the realization of thermal storage. Impressively, the [email protected] matrix displays satisfactory self-healing of the original covalent network at the macroscopically damaged interface, while the obtained stable shape PCMs (SSPCMs) can achieve a high EMI shielding effectiveness (54.1 dB) with the sprayed MXene layer thickness of 20 um in X-band. Meanwhile, the SSPCM can also achieve effective electro/photo-to-thermal conversion, which provides a possibility for the realization of multi-source driven thermal storage. In brief, a new preparation is proposed for preparing SSPCMs, which is expected to be applied in the EMI shielding, temperature control and thermal storage fields in the future.