Rational Design and Manufacturing of Ceramic-Polymer Composites for Solid State Cooling using the Electrocaloric Effect

利用电热效应合理设计和制造用于固态冷却的陶瓷聚合物复合材料

• 批准号: 1361713
• 负责人: Qing Wang
• 金额: $ 32.85万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-01 至 2018-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1361713&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Rational; Design; Manufacturing; Ceramic; Polymer

In the class of materials referred to as electrocaloric effect (ECE) materials, flow of an electric current through the material can create a temperature difference across the material. In other words, if one connects a battery to two sides of an electrocaloric material, one side of the material will become warmer and one side will become cooler. Because of this temperature difference across the material, electrocaloric materials can be used to build cooling or heating devices, but unlike conventional heating and air conditioning systems, electrocaloric devices can be fabricated with no moving parts. One major challenge to the ECE-based cooling technology is a lack of high-performance electrocaloric materials that are easily handled and shaped during manufacturing and that can be operated at room temperature using low amounts of power. This award will support the development of polymer composite materials (i.e. polymers that are mixed with other materials) as a new form of ECE materials to overcome these challenges. This project will train graduate and undergraduate students capable of working in the interdisciplinary field of functional materials. The research outcomes will be incorporated into various outreach activities for grades 9-12 teachers and high school students. This aim of this research is the introduction of ceramic fillers into ferroelectric polymers to improve room-temperature ECE responses. The structures and compositions of the ferroelectric polymer and ceramics will be designed and tuned to boost the ECE responses by optimizing the ferroelectric-paraelectric phase transition and the dielectric properties. Control over the spatial orientation of the fillers, and the effect of this orientation of performance, will be investigated. Detailed and systematic characterization of the resulting structures and properties will be carried out to gain fundamental insight into key relationships between chemical structure, film morphology, polarization, dielectric responses, and electrocaloric properties. Unique mechanisms in the electroactive polymer nanocomposites such as the interfacial coupling effect will be investigated. The success of this project will open a new direction in the development of high-performance ECE materials and have implications for development of novel polymer nanocomposites with new architectures and superior coupled properties.

在被称为电热效应（ECE）材料的一类材料中，电流流过材料可以在材料上产生温差。换句话说，如果将电池连接到电热材料的两侧，材料的一侧将变得更热，而一侧将变得更冷。由于材料之间存在这种温差，电热材料可用于构建冷却或加热设备，但与传统的加热和空调系统不同，电热设备可以在没有移动部件的情况下制造。基于 ECE 的冷却技术面临的一大挑战是缺乏高性能电热材料，这些材料在制造过程中易于处理和成型，并且可以在室温下使用较低的功率运行。该奖项将支持聚合物复合材料（即与其他材料混合的聚合物）作为新型 ECE 材料的开发，以克服这些挑战。该项目将培养能够在功能材料跨学科领域工作的研究生和本科生。研究成果将被纳入针对 9 至 12 年级教师和高中生的各种外展活动中。本研究的目的是将陶瓷填料引入铁电聚合物中，以改善室温 ECE 响应。铁电聚合物和陶瓷的结构和成分将被设计和调整，以通过优化铁电-顺电相变和介电性能来增强 ECE 响应。 将研究对填料空间取向的控制以及这种性能取向的影响。将对所得结构和性能进行详细和系统的表征，以获得对化学结构、薄膜形态、极化、介电响应和电热性能之间的关键关系的基本了解。将研究电活性聚合物纳米复合材料的独特机制，例如界面耦合效应。该项目的成功将为高性能ECE材料的开发开辟新方向，并对具有新结构和优异耦合性能的新型聚合物纳米复合材料的开发产生影响。