Determination of the Heat Storage Capacity of Pcm and Pcm-objects as a Function of Temperature

Phase change materials (PCM) are thermal storage materials with a high storage density for small temperature range applications. One such application is the storage of natural cold of the night to use during daytime, called “free cooling”. Very high energy efficiency can be reached as the cold has not to be generated. Those systems are especially interesting for lightweight buildings, which heat up fast in hot days due to the small thermal mass of the building structure. This is considered a very promising application for PCM, as the market for cooling of buildings is expanding rapidly and free cooling systems can be retrofitted in existing buildings [Mehling 2002, Zalba 2004].