Development of phase change materials for building applications

• Development of PCMs for building applications.
• Eutectics based on fatty acids were developed.
• The melting temperature of materials is in the desired range of 20–30 °C.
• The latent heat of fusion is in the range of 100–160 kJ/kg.
• Capric acid based eutectics proposed for the building applications.

This paper deals with the development of eutectics based on commercial grade fatty acids i.e. capric acid (CA), lauric acid (LA), myristic acid (MA), palmitic acid (PA) and stearic acid (SA), which used as a form-stable, solid–liquid phase change material (PCM) for thermal energy storage and with determination of their thermal properties. In this regard, a series of eutectics, i.e. CA–LA, CA–MA, CA–PA and CA–SA developed with different weight percentages (10/90, 20/80, 30/70, 40/60, 50/50, 60/40, 70/30, 80/20 and 90/10). Thermal characteristics such as melting temperature and latent heat of fusion of these developed eutectics measured by using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) technique, which also showed that developed eutectics were good candidates for building applications in terms of their large latent heat values and suitable phase change temperatures. The DSC results also showed that the melting temperatures and latent heat values of the developed PCMs are in the range of about 20–30 °C and 100–160 J/g. It was also found that CA weight percentage has a significant role in the melting temperature of developed tactics.