Latent heat nano composite building materials

Abstract

Heat storage for heating and cooling of buildings reduces the conventional energy consumption with a direct impact on CO 2 emissions. The goal of this study was to find the physico-chemical fundamentals for tailoring phase change material (PCM)-epoxy composites as building materials depending on phase change temperature and latent heat using the optimal geometry for each application. Thus, some nano-composite materials were prepared by mixing a PCM with large latent heats with epoxy resin and Al powder. Some polyethylene glycols of different molecular weights (1000, 1500, and 2000) were used as PCMs. Subsequently these PCM-epoxy composites were thermo-physically characterized by DSC measurements and found to be suitable for building applications due to their large latent heat, appropriate phase change temperature and good performance stability. Moreover these cross-linked three dimensional structures are able to reduce the space and costs for encapsulation.