Phase change material based cold thermal energy storage: Materials, techniques and applications – A review

•PCM based cold thermal storage is more advantageous than other techniques such as sensible and thermo-chemical storage techniques.•The heat transfer rate of the PCM can be increased by the inclusion of nanostructures.•Use of less corrosive material is important while developing a cold thermal storage system.•Cold thermal storage systems aid to increase the efficiency of the air-conditioning system.

This paper gives a comprehensive review on recent developments and the previous research studies on cold thermal energy storage using phase change materials (PCM). Such commercially available PCMs having the potential to be used as material for cold energy storage are categorised and listed with their melting point and latent heat of fusion. Also techniques for improving the thermo-physical properties of PCM such as heat transfer enhancement, encapsulation, inclusion of nanostructures and shape stabilization are reviewed. The effect of stability due to the corrosion of construction materials is also reported. Finally, different applications where the PCM can be employed for cold energy storage such as free cooling of building, air-conditioning, refrigerated trucks and cold packing are discussed.