To this end, polycaprolactone (PCL) was used as the encapsulating matrix of a
phase change material (PCM) called RT5 (a commercial blend of paraffins with a transition temperature
at 5 C), by using high throughput electrohydrodynamic processing. The PCL/PCM fibrous mats were
directly electrospun onto PS films and an additional PCL electrospun layer (without PCM) was also deposited
in some experiments to improve the overall functionality of the PCM. The attained morphology,
thickness, deposition time, temperature and multilayer structure played an important role on the energy
storage capacity of the developed PS-based multilayer structures. Results obtained from a differential
scanning calorimeter (DSC) show that RT5 can be properly encapsulated inside the PCL matrix and the
encapsulation efficiency and, thus, the heat storage capacity was affected not only by the multilayer
structure, but also by the storage time and temperature. The thermal energy storage/release capacity
was of about 88–119 J/g. As a result, this work demonstrates the potential of these materials for an efficient
temperature buffering effect of relevance in food packaging applications, in order to preserve the
quality of refrigerated packaged food products.