Hollow Polymer Microcapsule Embedded Transparent Film for Thermal Management

To safely accommodate global increases in population and per capita consumption, a significant need for immediate energy conservation has been emphasized. An effective way towards conserving energy is to improve the thermal insulation of building windows while maintaining a high visible transparency. To this end, in this poster, we describe a facile and scalable approach to manufacturing highly transparent, heat-insulating films. By incorporating hollow poly(methyl methacrylate) microcapsules into the transparent polymeric films, less thermally conductive air could be efficiently included into the matrix. Thus, the current approach can enhance the thermal barrier property of the films without a significant reduction in the optical transparency. The solid film possessing 30 wt% microcapsules, for example, exhibited a high visible light transmittance (~80%) and the thermal conductivity was reduced to 0.06 W/mK, corresponding to 46% of the capsule free film. To quantify and verify this result, theoretical models describing a heat transfer in hollow microsphere composite were used, which the model effort showed a good agreement with our experimental observations.