The experimental and numerical study on a novel all-day PCM thermal-catalytic purified Trombe wall in winter

Abstract

People pay most of time of evening at home after work. Thus, both the indoor thermal comfort and indoor air quality at nighttime have been obtained more attention. The combination application of PCMs with thermal catalytic purification technology in a Trombe wall that realizes all-day formaldehyde removal and space heating can well solve both issues. Here, an all-day purified Trombe Wall was proposed and designed. The thermal and formaldehyde removal performances were experimentally tested in two continuous days. Then the system heat and mass transfer model were established and experimentally verified. Finally, the optimization works on the type and thickness on PCMs were conducted based on the model. The main results were: (1) The experimental results showed that the thermal efficiency and average formaldehyde removal ratio were 50.8 % and 41.6 %, respectively. The total volume of clean air generated in daytime and nighttime were 249.8 m3 and 241.4 m3, respectively. (2) The RSMD values for the model verification were 5.9–9.6 %, which showed the model had a good prediction on the experimental results. (3) The selection of Butyl palmitate at 44 °C as the PCM and the thickness set to 1 cm could make the system have better energy saving and purification performance.