Development of temperature-responsive dynamic-emissivity phase change material for all-season building energy savingsShow others and affiliations
2025 (English)In: Applied Thermal Engineering, ISSN 1359-4311, E-ISSN 1873-5606, Vol. 281, article id 128655Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Phase change material (PCM) applied on building envelope (e.g., roof, wall) has been proved to be effective for reducing both cooling and heating energy use. Recently, preliminary studies have applied high-emissivity radiative cooling material on PCM for enhancing cooling performance. However, since emissivity of the cooling material is static, it leads to a fast indoor heat dissipation rate at cold ambient and thus results in increased building heating loads. To this end, this study develops a dynamic-emissivity PCM that synchronizes adaptive emissivity regulation with PCM’s latent heat characteristics, thereby reducing both building cooling and heating loads. This composite material integrates a temperature-responsive Fabry-Perot resonator with PCM using facile and cost-effective method (mainly spin coating). The composite PCM can achieve low emissivity for heating in cold environment and high emissivity for cooling in hot environment in response to ambient temperature change, which matches the latent heat absorption and release of PCM for improving thermal performance. Outdoor experiments show that the composite PCM can reduce and increase the indoor temperature by more than 3.5 °C at hot ambient and 1.5 °C at cold ambient respectively in comparison with conventional PCM. Numerical simulations demonstrate the developed material can achieve 10.5–23.5 % year-round energy savings across diverse Chinese climate regions. At last, the color design of the composite material is also conducted to cater for users’ preferences. This work paves new way to develop advanced PCM for all-season building energy savings.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier BV , 2025. Vol. 281, article id 128655
Keywords [en]
Building energy saving, Dynamic emissivity, Opaque envelope, Phase change material
National Category
Energy Engineering Building Technologies Energy Systems
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-372612DOI: 10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2025.128655ISI: 001600351500004Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105019925256OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-372612DiVA, id: diva2:2013437
Note
QC 20251113
2025-11-132025-11-132025-11-13Bibliographically approved