Advancement in phase change materials for thermal energy storage applications

In recent years the thermal energy storage applications with phase change materials have attracted wide interest. This has motivated a number of R&D efforts to develop novel materials and design new applications based on PCM. The efficient design of the new applications majorly depends on the quality of PCM employed. Numbers of reviews, reports have been written to compile the wide range of PCMs made available for different applications. This paper focuses on the development of next generation PCMs through the enhancement of thermophysical properties namely thermal conductivity, latent heat of fusion and sensible heat. The paper presents a detailed review of the research updates in this direction so as to produce PCMs with enhanced efficiency in terms of thermal energy storage and efficient heat transfer.