Title :Dr. B. Kalidasan, Sunway University, Malaysia: Thermal Energy Storage and Next-Generation Phase-Change Materials   

Speaker :Dr. B. Kalidasan (Sunway University, Malaysia)   

Time :Friday, 19 December 2025, 9:00 a.m.   

Venue :Meeting Room, 4th Floor of the Shaw Engineering Building  

Invitor :Dr. Ling Ziye   

Organizer :School of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering   

[Brief profile]

Dr. B. Kalidasan is a Lecturer at the Sunway Centre for Electrochemical Energy and Sustainable Technology, Faculty of Engineering & Technology, Sunway University, Selangor, Malaysia. A mechanical-engineering graduate, he specialized in Energy Engineering at VIT University, Vellore, India, and completed his doctoral work on nano-enhanced phase-change materials for low-temperature thermal-energy storage at Sunway University. He also undertook a one-year post-doctoral fellowship at the Research Centre for Nanomaterials and Energy Technology, Sunway University.

[Abstract]

Phase-change materials (PCMs) are promising media for thermal-energy storage (TES) because of their large latent heat during phase transition. Yet their power density and overall storage efficiency are limited by low thermal conductivity, leakage, and phase instability. The quest for next-generation PCMs is driven by today’s global energy challenges. Although PCMs were introduced two decades ago, they remain an affordable, sustainable, and reliable solution for many TES and thermal-regulation problems. Meticulous research continues to push every boundary of PCM science, giving rise to new classes of materials with enhanced performance and easier handling. Timely advances are essential to unlock the full potential of PCMs and integrate them into buildings, transportation, electronics, and beyond. Current frontiers include refining thermodynamic parameters, optimizing isomerization and phase-change kinetics, boosting energy-conversion efficiency, tuning absorption spectra, preventing liquid leakage, increasing thermal conductivity, and addressing the environmental disposal of nanomaterial-doped PCMs after long-term operation. Given these challenges, focused research on next-generation PCMs is imperative.

This presentation will provide an in-depth discussion of the intermolecular interactions that govern the energy-storage capability of PCMs and will highlight the key confinements that still constrain their practical deployment.

Announced by School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.