New database to select phase change materials: chemical nature, properties, and applications

Abstract

Today, thermal energy storage materials are proposed as a promising solution to increase the energy efficiency in building sector and to reduce the total energy demand because building sector accounts up to 34% of total energy consumption. Under this situation, phase change materials (PCM) are well-considered as materials to store energy allowing high energy densities (between 50 and 600 MJ/cm3). Available materials to be used as PCM for building application in literature were added to a database for to be used with CES Selector software. More than three hundred PCM whit phase change temperatures between −50 °C and 150 °C and considering commercial and non-commercial PCM were listed and classified by their properties and the values available of the materials have been introduced in this database. The main objective of this study is to generate a PCM database and draw on it in order to facilitate the selection of the most suitable PCM depending on the building application.

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme (FP/ 2007-2013) under grant agreement no. ENER/FP7/1295983 (MERITS) and under grant agreement no. PIRSES-GA-2013-610692 (INNOSTORAGE). Furthermore, the work is partially funded by the Spanish government (ENE2011-28269-C03-02 and ENE2011-22722). The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research groups GREA (2014 SGR 123) and DIOPMA (2014 SGR 1543).