Comparative Study of Cost and Power Consumption of HVAC System Using Phase Change Material

Abstract

Phase change materials (PCM) are materials which absorb the latent heat of the surrounding air. They usually have characteristics such as near to constant temperature operating range with high energy density of melting from solidified state. Nowadays, heating ventilation & air conditioning (HVAC) of commercial & domestic buildings, green rooms in pharmaceutical companies is necessary for maintaining desired atmospheric condition inside the building compound for optimum working environment. For doing so, lot of energy is consumed in this process. Therefore, there is a need of reduction in power consumption where PCM finds a huge market. These materials store the latent heat of the net heat available as latent heat thermal energy without increase in its temperature. Thus, there is a large scope for its usage for reducing the heat load for refrigerating effect for a specified area. This paper intends to compare the variation in heat load calculation of air refrigerated areas like that in commercial buildings, domestic purposes, industrial applications etc. with and without the use of PCM materials.