Alexium Brings Advanced PCM Solutions to Data Centers and Building Materials

GREER, SC, UNITED STATES, October 6, 2026 /CourierPR/ -- Alexium International Group Limited, a specialty chemistry company based in Australia, has expanded its portfolio with the December 2025 acquisition of Microtek Laboratories, bringing advanced phase change material (PCM) solutions to the U.S. market. These solutions are now available to data center developers, design-build contractors, and engineering firms as a passive thermal buffer integrated into the facility itself.

Alexium's microencapsulated PCM (mPCM) solutions, including Micronal, are designed to provide enhanced thermal management in data centers and building materials. Micronal, originally engineered by BASF for gypsum board and plaster, has been in use for two decades in commercial buildings. It is now manufactured in the United States following the acquisition.

The company is positioning its mPCMs to address the increasing thermal challenges in data centers. As rack densities climb, the minutes after a cooling failure have become a critical design problem. According to Schneider Electric's analysis, a dense data hall can climb roughly 5°C per minute during a cooling outage, potentially exceeding acceptable limits within five minutes before chillers can restart. Electrical, uninterruptible power supply (UPS), and battery rooms must maintain their temperature through the same event, and daily load swings in support spaces force HVAC systems to be sized for peak loads that are rarely seen.

To meet these challenges, Alexium is opening a co-development program for PCM-based thermal energy storage aimed at the ride-through and peak-load challenges of AI-era facilities. The company's mPCMs can be formulated into slurries, plates, and cassettes at custom melt points for active thermal storage, and research indicates that PCM storage can be up to four times more compact than equivalent water tanks.

Alexium's mPCMs transform ordinary wallboard, plaster, aerated concrete, ceiling cassettes, and architectural coatings into latent thermal mass. Each microcapsule holds a proprietary core inside a cross-linked shell, small enough to mix into the building material without changing how it is installed. When room air climbs past the PCM's melt point, the core melts and absorbs heat; when the space cools, it re-solidifies and releases it.

For example, a single 15 mm gypsum board loaded with 3 kg/m² of Micronal® stores about 330 kJ/m² at its switching point, providing the heat-storage capacity of roughly 9 cm of concrete without the weight or freight. The capsules have been tested through 10,000 thermal cycles, equivalent to about 30 years of daily use, with no notable change in performance.

Alexium mPCMs are designed to work alongside chilled-water storage and UPS-backed fans and pumps, not to replace them. The solutions are intended for three key areas in a data center campus: support spaces, data hall walls and ceilings, and prefabricated, modular, and edge facilities. Lightweight panel construction has almost no thermal mass, but a 15 mm mPCM board can give a factory-built module the heat-storage capacity of 9 cm of concrete without the weight or freight.

Cundall, a consulting engineering firm, wrote in July 2026 that thermal storage is the most effective ride-through provision available to designers. Alexium is positioning its mPCMs to help minimize peak energy demand during extreme daily temperature swings, addressing the growing need for advanced thermal management in data centers and AI-era facilities.