Abstract

In this work it has been proven that the metal oxide shell that is present in Sn and Zn nanoparticles can be used as encapsulation for thermal engineering applications. This shell is present in several metal nanoparticles produced by different methods and it is formed during the nanoparticle fabrication process. This new encapsulation proposal simplifies the production of nePCMs, showing that commercial metal nanoparticles are selfencapsulated by its own metal oxide shell. However, potential interactions between the metal oxide shell and the base fluid components should be taken into account in order to select the nePCM.