Thermal Performance Assessment of Concrete Walls Using Different Phase Change Materials

Abstract

Energy demand is continuously increasing around the globe, and the building sector contributes 40% of the total energy consumption, as per the studies. Fossil fuels are the primary cause of harmful gas emissions, thus causing environmental pollution. There is a dire need to introduce innovative techniques to fulfill energy demands while reducing environmental pollution. Phase change materials (PCMs) are the latent thermal storage materials that store thermal energy during phase change from solid to liquid state and vice versa. Thus, using PCMs in structural engineering offers one of the best options for rapidly developing energy-saving materials. To do so, ascaled model, concrete walls room, encapsulating locally available PCMs, was constructed in this study. Three locally available PCMs (glycerin, vegetable ghee, and ferric chloride hexahydrate) have been tested in a controlled environment. The model response is then evaluated for the energy-storing capacity of each PCM while considering the human comfort zone. From the test results, it is concluded that PCMs have a significant effect on improving the thermal energy efficiency of the model without any notable adverse effects. Over the completion of the test, after 12 hr, all the incorporated PCM showed positive results, and a maximum temperature loss of 2.25 K was observed. Among different PCMs, the optimal performance was observed for vegetable ghee, which showed a drop in temperature for all the points at the inner side of the wall, i.e., T3, T4, and T5.