Improving indoor thermal comfort by using phase change materials: A review

Phase change materials (PCMs) have great potentials to be used in modern building materials to stabilize indoor temperature fluctuations for improving thermal comfort. This paper presents a comprehensive review on the use of PCMs in buildings to improve thermal comfort without increasing energy consumption. Concise discussions of the experimental and computational works reported in literature are presented. A special focus of this review is devoted to discussing different analysis methods and models used to test, characterize, and measure the performance of PCMs in modern building applications under different conditions. This detailed review also highlights the special attention given to organic PCMs, such as paraffin, due to their favorable properties, such as low price, chemical stability, non-corrosiveness, and high latent heat of fusion. The review shows the scarcity of literature reporting the use of eutectic PCMs in building applications, despite their high volumetric storage density.