A review about phase change material cold storage system applied to solar-powered air-conditioning system

• Main Authors: Lin Zheng, Wei Zhang, Fei Liang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2017-06-01
• Series: Advances in Mechanical Engineering
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/1687814017705844

Phase change material cold storage system could improve the efficiency and stability of the solar-powered air-conditioning system and the building thermal environment. This article is a novel investigation of the phase change materials’ usage in cold storage system and the phase change material cold storage working principles and features that are applied in the different solar-powered air-conditioning systems as cited in the recent publications. This involves phase change material cold storage system, solar-powered air-conditioning system, and the commercial market evaluation. To reduce the intermittent solar energy operation, the energy storage system is quite essential. Currently, the popular method is advanced phase change material cold storage. Using phase change materials in the energy storage systems, the heat exchangers and thermal control systems are the potential techniques. This article also reviewed the phase change material cold storage when applied in the solar-powered air-conditioning system based on the previous study. This article could benefit further research in the solar-powered air-conditioning field as integrated to the phase change material cold storage system and help to understand the commercial market development trend. For further studies, it was suggested that the optimal design of solar-powered cooling system could be employed by phase change material storage/release cooling dynamical control to improve the building thermal environment.