Taguchi and ANOVA analysis for the optimization of the microencapsulation of a volatile phase change material

Abstract

The microencapsulation of volatile phase change materials is an important and challenging area for low-temperature thermal energy storage. Our previous studies have effectively addressed the challenge of long-term volatile core retention and also indicated that the quality of the obtained poly(urea-formaldehyde) microcapsules is highly affected by various process parameters, including reaction temperature, initial pH, reaction time, and homogenization speed. In this paper, the Taguchi orthogonal array has been employed to optimise controllable process parameters to identify the most synergistic combination, in order to maximise the payload, yield, and encapsulation efficiency. The Taguchi signal-to-noise ratio results substantiated that the most efficient combination of parameters was 3 h reaction time, pH 3.5, 55 °C reaction temperature, and 1200 rpm homogenization speed. With this combination of parameters, microcapsules with superbly high payload of 95.2%, as well as a yield of 30.5% and encapsulation efficiency of 71.1% were amalgamated. In addition, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was also utilised to demonstrate the mean response magnitudes (% contribution) of each of the four controllable process parameters, in terms of contribution for the payload, yield, and encapsulation efficiency. Overall, it was indicated that the temperature is the most influential parameter at 83.1% contribution, followed by pH at 6.8%, reaction time at 5.2%, and homogenization speed at 4.9%. Such findings in this work postulate the fundamental insights into maximising the output of the formulation conditions, which in turn is aimed to minimise the time and cost of production of the microcapsules.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmrt.2021.01.025
Divisions: College of Engineering & Physical Sciences > School of Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering > Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry
College of Engineering & Physical Sciences
College of Engineering & Physical Sciences > Aston Institute of Materials Research (AIMR)
Additional Information: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Funding: The authors express their sincere gratitude to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for the funding provided to this project (EP/N000714/1 and EP/N021142/1)
Uncontrolled Keywords: ANOVA analysis,Microencapsulation,Phase change materials,Process optimization,Taguchi,Volatile organic compounds,Ceramics and Composites,Biomaterials,Surfaces, Coatings and Films,Metals and Alloys
Publication ISSN: 2238-7854
Last Modified: 19 Mar 2024 08:22
Date Deposited: 19 Jan 2021 10:46
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: https://www.sci ... %3Dihub#ack0010 (Publisher URL)
http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2021-03
Published Online Date: 2021-01-16
Accepted Date: 2021-01-10
Authors: Mustapha, Abdullah Naseer
Zhang, Yan
Zhang, Zhibing
Ding, Yulong
Yuan, Qingchun (ORCID Profile 0000-0001-5982-3819)
Li, Yongliang

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