Phase change materials for thermal energy storage

Thermoelectrics: a review of present and potential applications

Thermal energy storage technologies and systems for concentrating solar power plants

A significant portion of the total primary energy is consumed by today's buildings in developed countries In many of these buildings, the energy consumption can be significantly reduced by adopting energy efficiency strategies Due to environmental concerns and the high cost of energy in recent years there has been a renewed interest in building energy efficiency This article strives to make an exhaustive technical review of the building envelope components and respective improvements from an energy efficiency perspective Different types of energy efficient walls such as Trombe walls, ventilated walls, and glazed walls are discussed Performance of different fenestration technologies including aerogel, vacuum glazing and frames are presented Advances in energy efficient roofs including the contemporary green roofs, photovoltaic roofs, radiant-transmittive barrier and evaporative roof cooling systems are discussed Various types of thermal insulation materials are enumerated along with selection criteria of these materials The effects of thermal mass and phase change material on building cooling/heating loads and peak loads are discussed Application of thermal mass as an energy saving method is more effective in places where the outside ambient air temperature differences between the days and nights are high Air tightness and infiltration of building envelopes are discussed as they play a crucial role in the energy consumption of a building Energy efficiency approaches sometimes might not require additional capital investment For example, a holistic energy efficient building design approach can reduce the size of mechanical systems compensating the additional cost of energy efficiency features

Passive building energy savings: A review of building envelope components

Review of passive PCM latent heat thermal energy storage systems towards buildings’ energy efficiency

Energy storage components improve the energy efficiency of systems by reducing the mismatch between supply and demand. For this purpose, phase-change materials are particularly attractive since they provide a high-energy storage density at a constant temperature which corresponds to the phase transition temperature of the material. Nevertheless, the incorporation of phase-change materials (PCMs) in a particular application calls for an analysis that will enable the researcher to optimize performances of systems. Due to the non-linear nature of the problem, numerical analysis is generally required to obtain appropriate solutions for the thermal behavior of systems. Therefore, a large amount of research has been carried out on PCMs behavior predictions. The review will present models based on the first law and on the second law of thermodynamics. It shows selected results for several configurations, from numerous authors so as to enable one to start his/her research with an exhaustive overview of the subject. This overview stresses the need to match experimental investigations with recent numerical analyses since in recent years, models mostly rely on other models in their validation stages.

A review on phase-change materials: Mathematical modeling and simulations

http://amet-me.mnsu.edu/userfilesshared/solarwall/Solar%20Passive%20(Trombe)%20Wall%20Documents/Technical%20Publications/Numerical%20study%20on%20thermal%20behavior%20of%20classical%20or%20composite%20Trombe%20solar%20walls.pdf

Numerical study on thermal behavior of classical or composite Trombe solar walls

http://www.t3e.info/pdf/Publications/2012_Experimental%20study%20of%20small-scale%20solar%20wall%20integrating%20phase%20change%20material_Solar%20Energy.pdf

Experimental study of small-scale solar wall integrating phase change material

http://www.t3e.info/pdf/Publications/Preprint/2011.AE.PCM_PREPRINT.pdf

Experimental and numerical investigation of a phase change material: Thermal-energy storage and release

http://amet-me.mnsu.edu/UserFilesShared/SolarWall/Solar%20Passive%20(Trombe)%20Wall%20Documents/Technical%20Publications/Studyof%20solar%20walls%20%E2%80%94%20validating%20a%20simulation%20model.pdf

Stéphane Lassue

Papers

A review on phase-change materials: Mathematical modeling and simulations

Numerical study on thermal behavior of classical or composite Trombe solar walls

Experimental study of small-scale solar wall integrating phase change material

Experimental and numerical investigation of a phase change material: Thermal-energy storage and release

Study of solar walls — validating a simulation model