About the Journal

Aims and Scope:

Journal of Phase Change Materials (J-PCM) is an interdisciplinary journal devoted to rapid communications on the science, applications, and processing of different materials showing phase change properties. Journal of Phase Change Materials has an open access journal which has vast aims and scope, diverse editorial board and fast & fair peer-review process. To submit to Journal of Phase Change Materials (J-PCM) please visit https://www.j-pcm.org/submission.

The Journal of Phase Change Materials publishes papers that report significant original research results on, or techniques for studying, the relationships between structure, processing, properties, and performance of materials. Topics include metals, ceramics, glasses, polymers, electrical and electronic materials, composite materials, fibres, nanostructured materials, and materials for application in the life sciences. Papers are selected for their high quality and broad interest to the materials community. The J-PCM is now established as the leading source of primary communication for scientists investigating the structure and properties of all engineering of PCMs. Explores the relationship between structure, properties and uses of materials. The journal's principal publications are original articles containing new information, major reviews and selected papers from important conferences. Discussion of published material and rapid communications will form part of the journal where appropriate. The journal will focus on papers with a broad interest, based upon their subject area, the quality of the research, the novelty of the results and the potential for assimilation of the findings. Interested authors of review papers need to send the outline of the review together with a short CV of the main author/s to the Editor-in-Chief before submission of the paper to the journal.

J-PCM seeks review articles and express communications covering the studies of structure and properties of inorganic and organic materials, advances in synthesis, processing, characterisation and testing, design of materials and engineering systems, and applications in technology. The journal is multi-disciplinary in nature and seeks to bring together aspects of materials science, engineering, physics, and chemistry. In exploring the themes ranging from materials to design, it also pursues the elucidation of underlying connections between natural and artificial, and experiment and modelling. Manuscripts submitted to J-PCM are sought to contain elements of discovery and surprise that often accompany the obtention of new insights into the architecture and function of phase change materials.

Contributions include, but are not limited to, a variety of topics such as:

Materials: Inorganic PCMs (salt hydrates), Organic PCMs (paraffin, fatty acids and fatty acid esters) eutectic PCMs (eutectic salts and solutions), Selected hydrocarbons; Polymers and metal alloys; amorphous solids, ceramics, composites, polymers, semiconductors, biomaterials and biological materials, advanced materials, metamaterials, latent functional thermal fluids, metal-organic PCMs, Polymer, conductive polymers, Pressure & temperature-induced phase change, Phase change induced by chemical and electrochemical reactions. 

Applications:  Building industry, textiles, automotive sector, solar energy installations, electronics, medicine, thermal protection, space, food industry, fire retardation, solar energy storage, heating/cooling system, active storage systems, passive storage systems, thermal storage, rheology control, Photovoltaic, Photo-thermal energy, Membrane, Photocatalysis, Surface modification, Sensors.

Novel Materials: Micro and nanostructures (nanowires, nanotubes, nanoparticles), nanocomposites, thin films, superlattices, quantum dots. nanoconfined PCMs, Carbon material composite PCMs, Graphene, thin films, superlattices, quantum dots.

Preparation/Processing: Impregnation of porous metal foam, Powders cold compression, Thin film processing, sol-gel processing, mechanical processing, assembly, Nanocrystalline Processing; (micro)encapsulation: coacervation, interfacial polymerization, Emulsion Polymerization, Suspension polymerization, and in situ polymerization, Mini-Emulsion Polymerization method, Polycondensation, polyaddition; cryogenic treatment.

Properties: Mechanical, magnetic, optical, electrical, ferroelectric, interfacial, transport, thermodynamic, photoelectrochemical, photocatalytic, thermoelectric, biological. thermal properties; physical properties, kinetic properties; chemical properties; thermophysical properties, Long term stability, Thermal conductivity, Heat Storage Capacity, Structural and Thermochemical Properties, Phase-Change Thermodynamics, Thermal Responses

Characterisation: Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR); field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS), Effective thermal conductivities of composite PCMs, Temperature History Method (THM)

Modelling: Numerical analysis and modelling, models of composite PCMs; theoretical modelling and numerical analysis of the heat transfer in composite PCMs; dynamics simulation study of NanoPCM, Transport, mechanical and other properties, thermodynamics and kinetic model, modelling on atomistic, microstructural and structural levels

Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence: Applied to the discovery and design of materials, 3D materials, Advanced functional materials and design