Palm-Oil-Derived Phase-Change Materials for Thermal Energy Storage: Molecular Design, Encapsulation, Heat-Transfer Enhancement, and Engineering Applications A Critical Review
Loso Judijanto
ABSTRACT
Phase-change materials (PCMs) can decouple thermal-energy supply from demand by absorbing and releasing latent heat across a narrow temperature interval. Bio-based PCMs have consequently attracted attention as renewable alternatives to petroleum-derived paraffins, yet most reviews treat plant oils as a single broad category and rarely examine the palm-oil platform as an engineerable family of thermalstorage molecules. This critical qualitative literature review evaluates palm oil, palm fractions, palm-derived fatty acids, esters, and related lipids as tunable PCMs rather than as a single biological material. It synthesizes recent evidence on molecular structure–transition relationships, eutectic design, hydrogenation and fractionation; low thermal conductivity and heat-transfer enhancement; encapsulation, form stabilization and leakage control; thermal cycling, corrosion and chemical stability; and emerging applications in buildings, cold chains, photovoltaic systems, battery thermal management, solar-thermal storage and low-grade industrial heat recovery. The analysis shows that palm-derived PCMs are technically credible where phase-transition temperature, latent-heat density and source sustainability are matched deliberately to the application. However, conductivity enhancement creates a recurring latent-heat dilution penalty, while encapsulation improves handling but introduces shell mass, interfacial resistance, processing cost and end-of-life complexity. The most promising research direction is therefore not a search for a universal palm PCM, but application-specific co-design of molecular composition, conductive architecture, containment and life-cycle strategy. A development roadmap is proposed for moving palm-derived PCMs from laboratory characterization toward standardized, safe and scalable thermal-energy-storage systems.
