Abstract Cetyl palmitate (CP) was thermally synthesized using binary 1-hexadecanol (HD) and palmitic acid (PA) mixture as the starting materials in nitrogen with the absence of any catalyst. The molecule structure, thermal property, thermal stability and reliability of as-prepared cetyl palmitate was studied by 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR), Fourier transformation infrared (FT-IR) spectrometer, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA), respectively. 1HNMR and FT-IR confirmed the as-prepared product under 350 °C for 30 min was CP with high purity. According to the DSC measurements, the onset melting temperature and latent heat of fusion for the as-prepared CP was 52.3 °C and 180.9 J/g, respectively. Results showed that the synthesized cetyl palmitate was favorable used as phase change material (PCM) owing to its desirable thermal properties, excellent thermal stability and reliability. Due to the low thermal conductivity of CP, it was impregnating into nickel (Ni) foams with different pore sizes to make CP/Ni foam composite PCMs (CPCMs). Compared with pure CP, thermal conductivity of CP/Ni foam (70, 90, and 110PPI) CPCMs were increased by 1.88, 2.02 and 4.86 times, respectively. The CP/Ni foam CPCMs displayed appropriate thermal properties for latent heat energy storage applications.