Materials used as PCM in thermal energy storage in buildings: A review

Abstract

In recent years the use of thermal energy storage with phase change materials has become a topic with a lot of interest within the research community, but also within architects and engineers.Manypublications have appeared, and several books, but the information is disseminated and not very much organised. This paper shows a review of the latest publications on the use of phase change materials (PCM) in buildings. The paper compiles information about the requirements of the use of this technology, classification of materials, materials available and problems and possible solutions on the application of such materials in buildings.

The work was partially funded by the European Union (COST Action COST TU0802) and the Spanish Government (project ENE2008-06687-C02-01/CON). The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research groups (2009 SGR 534 and 2009 SGR 645).