Solar air heater with phase change material: An energy analysis and a comparative study

In the present work an experimental study is made to enhance the efficiency of a simple fabricated Solar Air Heater (SAH) by using the thermal heat storage. A rectangular cavity filled with a Paraffin wax is used as a latent storage unit. An experimental study of two similar designed solar air collector (with and without Phase Change Material), is carried out to evaluate the PCM unit importance. The results show that during the night the outlet air temperature of the SAH was enhanced with using PCM. The daily energy efficiency of the SAH without PCM reached 17%, while the daily energy efficiency of the SAH with PCM reached 33%. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.