Looking for “Low Cost” Phase Change Materials and Their Application for Energy Saving
Abstract
Although technical viability of Thermal Energy Storage systems using Phase Change Materials (PCM) as storage medium has been proven, the economical viability holds its establishment back. Material cost is the critical point to enable their commercial expansion. Since Thermal Energy Storage systems with PCM can contribute to the reduction of energy consumption in buildings or industrial applications, the establishment of such systems in the market is a goal for the scientific community. Up to now, the search of adequate PCM was focused on the optimal behaviour of the material. Previous results indicate that a good thermal design of the heat exchanger makes up for the poor thermal properties of the PCM. The work was accomplished in the application to PCM direction: once an application was selected, the PCM was searched. Reversing this direction, this work focused on the methodology to complete a characterization of substances to evaluate their suitability of being used as PCM and looking for the application. A list of waste materials of industry with potential use as PCM is performed. The most interesting materials are selected and first results of thermal properties are obtained