Review on thermal energy storage with phase change materials (PCMs) in building applications

D. Zhou, C.Y. Zhao, Yuan Tian

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    1030 Citations (Scopus)
    626 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Thermal energy storage with phase change materials (PCMs) offers a high thermal storage density with a moderate temperature variation, and has attracted growing attention due to its important role in achieving energy conservation in buildings with thermal comfort. Various methods have been investigated by previous researchers to incorporate PCMs into the building structures, and it has been found that with the help of PCMs the indoor temperature fluctuations can be reduced significantly whilst maintaining desirable thermal comfort. This paper summarises previous works on latent thermal energy storage in building applications, covering PCMs, the impregnation methods, current building applications and their thermal performance analyses, as well as numerical simulation of buildings with PCMs. Over 100 references are included in this paper.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)593-605
    Number of pages13
    JournalApplied Energy
    Volume92
    Early online date23 Sept 2011
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Apr 2012

    Keywords

    • Thermal Energy Storage
    • Phase Change Materials
    • Thermal Comfort
    • Building applications
    • thermal performance

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