Boosting low-temperature thermal management performance and mechanical property of biomass brine gels by host-guest mutual promotion mechanism towards efficient cold energy utilization in biomedical cold chain

Biomass brine gels (BBGs) composed of environment-friendly biomass and low-cost non-toxic brine hold tremendous potential in low-temperature thermal management field. However, their insufficient thermal management performance and mechanical property still hinder their engineering applications. Herein, this work demonstrates a host-guest mutual promotion mechanism to synergistically boost low-temperature thermal management performance and of mechanical property BBGs. The Hofmeister effect of sulfate ions in host NaCl@Na2SO4 brine can improve the mechanical strength of BBGs by reconstructing interactions between guest konjac gum@xanthan gum (KGM-XG) biomass network. Synchronously, KGM-XG network provides micro compartment confinement for brine through three-dimensional hydrogen bonding to guarantee BBG with high melting enthalpy, no leakage and superior cycle stability. In addition, the introduction of amphiphilic gallic acid between BBG and graphite flakes decreases the interface thermal resistance, enhancing bulk thermal conductivity of BBG. Numerical simulations are applied to reveal the effect of microscopic heat conduction and macroscopic cold storage configuration on spatial temperature uniformity. Markedly, BBGs and 5G sensors are assembled into intelligent cold storage equipment to realize efficient low-temperature thermal management of biological enzyme. In the light of this, we anticipate that this mechanism for bespokeproperties will be of significant utility to low-temperature thermal management application.′