Review report on building material
in terms of thermal stability
Made by group :-
M-16
Phase change material
Phase Change Material (PCM) is a
substance that is used in the construction
buildings so as to keep the inner
temperature of the building low.
In scientific language ,PCMs are substance
that have a high heat of fusion, melting
and solidifying at a certain temperature
,which is capable of storing and releasing
large amounts of energy.
WHY PCMS ?
PCMs are used as a thermal stabilizing materials
because there latent heat of fusion is high and
can absorb a large amount of heat which helps in
cooling down the temperature of inner walls of
the building.
It is eco-friendly and doesn’t harms the nature at
all.
It can fuse with different materials hence
enhancing the thermal stability.
Types of PCMs
There are different types of PCMs:-
organic
Inorganic
Eutectics
Different types of PCMs
Organic :These include paraffin ,carbohydrates and
lipid derived substance . These have ability to melt
congruently and is safe and recyclable.
Inorganic : These include hydrated salts . They have
the abilities like high thermal conductivity , latent
heat of fusion .
Eutectics :these have a sharp melting point and their
volumetric storage density is slightly above than
organic compounds.
STEARIC ACID AS PCMS
Stearic acid is an organic PCM which is greatly
used in construction buildings because only
stearic acid is the material that absorbs and
releases thermal energy during the phase
change process.
The larger mass ratio of the stearic acid in the
composites will increase the thermal energy
storage capacity of the composites.
How to use stearic acid
As we cannot use pcms directly in the walls of the buildings
because there are possibilities that the layer can get frozen
and the efficiency for their storage of energy can get
decreased resulting in less thermal conductivity, so this the
reason that pcms like stearic acid are used as composites.
These composites are then filled inside the small chambers
so that it has less effect with the outside of the environment
and can undergo phase change easily without getting any
type of change.
In this type of technique , the chambers are made up of
different materials like amino plastics,
polymethylmethacrylate , SiO2 etc.
Material for making chambers for PCMs:-
The chambers are made up of different materials like
amino plastics, polymethylmethacrylate,SiO2 etc.
SiO2 is used as the shell material because its latent
heat ranges from 178.7KJ/Kg at 56.1°C (melting
point ) to 186.4 KJ/Kg at 53.1°C(freezing point )
resulting in improving the thermal stability of the
stearic acid and to provide leak proof chambers.
Method :-
• To prepare the composite PCM of stearic acid , the
supporting matrix and stearic acid (in solid form )
were used inside a beaker and the air was sucked
from inside of the beaker and then heated so as to
melt the solid stearic acid .
• After this process it was observed that some amount
of solid stearic acid got absorbed and the left over
amount was the excess stearic acid .
• The excess amount of stearic acid was removed and
then the composite PCM was filtered.
• The so formed mixture was used as a PCM mixture
to test upon.
The thermal stability and enthalpy of the so
formed mixturewas tested in the infrared
spectrometry and was obtained that the
composite PCM had a thermal stability of
±1.0 % and error in the accuracy was ±1.0%.
Why are plastics not used as
chamber materials for PCMs
Although the chambers of these pcms can also be
made up of polyethylene , polymethylethacrylate etc
but these become harmful for the environment as they
can release harmful gases while acting on higher
temperatures resulting in reduction in mechanical and
thermal stability.
Instead of this montmorillonite can be used because
it has high thermal stability and specific area which
can be appropriate for the chamber of the use of PCM
s like stearic acid .
Prepration of Montmorillonite as a
chamber material:-
The montmorillonite consists of organic elements like
SiO2,Cao ,Al2O3 etc.
This was made in use by 3 g of stearic acid to 100
ml of distilled water at a temperature of 90°C and
stirring it continuously till 30 min and then 1 ml of
tetraethoxysilane and 0.1 ml of ammonia (in liquid
form ) is poured and stirred again and then it is
dried and filtered at 60°C and for 24h.
Finally the montmorillonite and stearic acid solution
is obtained.
Alternate method of using stearic
acid:-
• One more method of using stearic acid as a main
energy storage material is that firstly a eutectic
material is made up with capric acid and then white
carbon black (WCB) is used as a medium to make
small pockets in which this eutectic mixture is filled.
• WCB is used as pocket material because it has
special abilities like 0% toxicity, 0% pollution ,
0%corrosion , good thermal stability and
durability.
• One more reason to use this is that it has high
thermal conductivity that improves the thermal
conduction of the composite PCMs.
Preparation method :-
After preparing the mixture of capric and
stearic acid by mixing 78.4% and 21.6%
respectively at 80̊ C continuously for ½
hour and further mixing the mixture
magnetically and with melted adsorption
method with WCB, it was observed that for
higher temperature, the outer covering of
WCB restricted the mixture of capric and
stearic acid to go into gaseous state ,hence
enhancing the thermal stability of the
composite mixture .
