05/05/2017

Materials for Durable and

Sustainable Construction
(CIVE 401)

The Inclusion of Phase Change

Materials (PCM) in Building
Structures
Greg Beattie
Email: greg99@liv.ac.uk

Introduction
• Its generally accepted that thermal mass contributes to the
energy efficiency of buildings reducing the heating and fuel
consumption in winter periods.

What is
thermal mass?

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Thermal Mass
• The ability of a material to store heat
• Dependant on the density, specific heat capacity and thermal
conductivity of the material
• The materials absorb heat from the air as the ambient
temperature rises and release heat into the air as the ambient
temperature falls
• Thermal mass acts as buffer so temperatures inside the
building rise and fall more slowly than external temperatures
and max and min temperature are less extreme.
• So heating and cooling costs are reduced…

Thermal Mass

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Background
• For building structures, there has been an increasing pressure
for design to include the use of construction materials with low
embodied energy and from renewable sources.
• Some of the materials discussed throughout the module i.e.
strawbale, earthern and hemp fibres and timber are considered
to be sustainable and environmentally friendly as the structures
have low embodied energy and come from renewable sources.
• The lightweight nature of these materials can lead to a lack of
thermal comfort, particularly in the summer resulting in
increased usage of electricity to power comfort cooling –
particularly an issue with timber framed buildings.

The significance of thermal mass

• Hacker et al (2008) study

• Computer simulation of a typical two bedroom semi detached

house with four levels of thermal mass which were:
• Lightweight – timber frame with external brick skin
• Medium weight – traditional brick and block exterior wall, with
lightweight timber upper floor and partitions and dry lining throughout
• Medium heavy – as medium weight but with blockwork partitions and
precast concrete hollow-core upper floor and dry lining throughout
• Heavy – dense concrete block inner leaf partitions, with precast
hollow-core upper floors and first floor ceiling – stone tiled ground slab

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The significance of thermal mass

The significance of thermal mass

• Which do you think performed best?
• The heavier weight class all showed lower operational CO2
emissions.
• Huge savings in air conditioning over a 100 year lifetime for
the heaviest construction.
• The initial carbon emissions was greater in all heavier weight
classes but small in the context of lifecycle emissions when
compared to the lighter weight construction.
• A similar exercise was carried out for 13 different scenarios
including offices, schools and dwellings (CIBSE, 2005).

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The significance of thermal mass

The significance of thermal mass

• Some interesting references for reading….

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Artificial thermal mass via PCM

• Thermal mass requires density with sufficient heat capacity
and conductivity to store sensible heat.
• Its not always practicable to install large amounts of concrete
and masonry to improve thermal mass…..why?
• Lots of research is ongoing looking at the use of PCM’s to
store latent heat and improve the thermal mass.
• PCM’s store latent heat energy. As the temperature increases,
the material changes from a solid to a liquid. As this physical
reaction is endothermic the PCM absorbs heat. When the
temperature decreases the material solidifies again and releases
heat (exothermic)…..clever!

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A good analogy….

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Classification of PCM’s…
• There are a wide variety of PCM’s depending on the
application:
• PCM’s are usually classified as:

• Organic (e.g. paraffins – seem to be the main choice for

building applications as they are more stable and non-
corrosive – more expensive than below materials)

• Inorganic (e.g. salt hydrates – cheap and abundantly

available but have limited use due to their corrosive nature
to metals and suffer from decomposition)

• Eutectic materials (e.g. fatty acids)

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Desired characteristics of PCM’s

• PCM’s suitable for building applications should
have :

• High heat of fusion

• Good thermal conductivity
• High specific heat capacity
• Small volume changes
• Be non-corrosive
• Non-toxic
• Exhibit little or no decomposition or supercooling
• Phase transition close to human temperature

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Desired characteristics of PCM’s

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Encapsulation
• Theory of PCM’s are promising but research has not, until very
recently, resulted in commercially viable products….
• Since the 1970’s researchers have tried to incorporate PCM’s
into general building materials by immersion or macro-
capsules.
• When PCM’s were not encapsulated, there were the obvious
problems with leakage and interaction between the PCM and
parent matrix material (cement slurry for example), problems
in protecting the material during construction etc.
• Micro-encapsulation of paraffin waxes was then introduced….

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Encapsulation

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Encapsulation
• Micro-encapsulation is where small spherical or rod-shaped
particles are enclosed in a thin polymeric film.
• The very small size of these capsules overcomes the problems
of inefficient heat transfer.
• The micro-capsules can be incorporated simply and
economically into construction materials (replacement for fine
aggregates for example..)

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PCM in Wall Boards

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Schossig study….
• Lots of research conducted since the 70’s…
• Studies into the implementation of PCM’s into wall boards
show that they can be considerably thinner and lighter than the
equivalent thermal mass without PCM’s.
• Schossig et al (2005) undertook a project over 5 years funded
by the German government. They simulated the thermal
performance of a typical lightweight office using a numerical
model with PCM mixed with interior plaster.
• Samples of the plaster were then tested under various
conditions to validate the model….

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Schossig study….
• Then they tested the materials in full sized offices – however
the experiment failed!
• So they built 2 full sized test rooms with lightweight
construction for test and control…..
• They tested 2 different PCM products
each for a period of a year with
indentical conditions in the PCM
and control rooms.
• Experimental testing will always
strengthen any study….

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Schossig study….
• The number of hours above 26º in the PCM room was
significantly reduced
• A shocking result during one 3 week period of the project was
that the temperature in the non-PCM room exceeded 28º for
more than 50 hours and only 5 hours for the PCM room.

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Schossig study….
• Schossig stressed the importance of night ventilation to ensure
the stored heat was fully discharged over night.
• They didn’t actually state what the PCM was although it is
implied that it was a paraffin as the melting/hardening range
was 24-26º.

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Supporting references

• See also Schossig EMI presentation on VITAL

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PCM in Concrete

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Industry Engagement
• Despite all of the research the results have generally not been
encouraging enough for products to be produced commercially
until very recently….
• BASF Construction Chemicals introduced Microbar
microcapsules of wax PCM in 2004 for use in the
manufacturing of building products such as plasterboards or
floor screeds.
• This product was incorporated into a commercially available
plasterboard for the first time in 2005.
• Its also available in a wet applied gypsum plaster called Maxi
Clima.

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Industry Engagement
• DuPont launched a product, Energain, in December 2006 also
containing paraffin wax.
• This product comes in the form of aluminium laminated panels
that are installed behind plasterboard dry lining rather than the
plasterboard itself.
• Energain was used in ‘Crossways’ which is a house designed
by Architect Hawkes and featured on Channel 4’s Grand
Designs.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZWLv-CzT2c

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Industry Engagement
• Some places where BASF Maxit has been used…..

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Industry Engagement
• Delta-cool 24 – salt hydrate based….

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Barriers and Enablers to use of PCM

• PCM products are expensive….(as are most innovative
materials)
• BASF admit that their plasterboard products are 10 times more
expensive than ordinary plasterboards
• However, if thermal mass is needed, especially for retro-fit
then accessibility and ease of installation is possibly offset
against the use of cranes and shuttering etc….
• More large scale based experiments are required or even real
‘prototype’ applications i.e. installation and monitoring in real
buildings using occupants as ‘Guinea-pigs’.

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Barriers and Enablers to use of PCM

• More transparent marketing…..

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Barriers and Enablers to use of PCM

• The provision of software models to help designers predict the
benefits of using PCM materials will encourage their use to be
explored properly.
• Several researchers have developed models that have been
developed through testing which include CODYMUR….

• DuPont are now marketing the software “CoDyBa” for use

with their Energain product…

http://energain.co.uk/Energain/en_GB/pcm_tech/index.html

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Moving forward…
• Further research including large scale case studies of buildings
in use, their energy consumption and thermal comfort of
occupants with and without PCM products is required…
• Research on existing lightweight domestic buildings attitudes
of their owners towards upgrading thermal mass is required..
• Improvement on advice and marketing of products is
required…
• The provision of more information to design professionals
regarding PCM products and their benefits is required
• More research to focus on the effects of PCM use in retrofit
applications is needed….

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Thanks for your attention

Any questions?

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