Phase Change Materials for Building Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Buildings are the most energy-consuming structures, demanding nearly two-fifths of the world's energy generation. Mostly, energy has been spent on improving thermal comfort inside the building. In this way, they significantly promote carbon emissions. Recent studies have shown that building energy consumption could be reduced by using phase change materials (PCMs). PCMs help to increase the building’s thermal inertia and stabilize the temperature of the indoor environment by storing and releasing heat within a specified temperature range. This would be an economically viable method of efficiently maintaining buildings’ indoor thermal comfort, which has been under research for the past few decades.

PCMs are basically latent heat storage (LHS) materials, which are characterized by their high thermal energy density. The building's thermal inertia can be improved through the proper encapsulation of suitable PCMs in the ceiling, walls, and floor of the buildings. In this way, the thermal energy storage capability of the building structure is enhanced, which would help in improving indoor human comfort without consuming much electrical energy. However, the preparation and the encapsulation of a suitable PCM within the building structure has been challenging, and it requires extensive research before its commercial implementation.

In this Special Issue, we invite original research and review articles related to the application of different kinds of PCMs for improving the energy efficiency of buildings. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Preparation and characterization of PCMs for building applications.
• Improving the properties of PCMs using nanomaterials for building applications.
• Stability and reliability studies of PCMs for building applications.
• Numerical analysis of the building structures using PCMs
• Zero energy buildings using PCM.
• Heat transfer study on buildings using PCMs
• Experimental studies on buildings with PCM integrated ceiling, wall and floor.
• Studies on the energy efficiency of the building’s glazing windows using PCMs.
• Studies on reducing carbon emissions of buildings using PCMs.
• Optimization of building components using nano-PCMs.
• Energy, exergy, environmental and economic analysis of the buildings using PCMs.

Dr. P. Manoj Kumar
Dr. M. B. Shyam Kumar
Prof. Dr. Joao Paulo Davim
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• phase change materials (PCM) for buildings
• characterization of PCM for buildings
• nano PCM for buildings
• stability of PCM
• encapsulation of PCM
• zero energy buildings
• building thermal management
• numerical study of building
• optimization
• energy and exergy analysis
• economic analysis