In the past several decades, many literatures have emerged on the topic of phase change material and latent heat storage techniques used in building. Accordingly, it is essential to review previous work to know about phase change material application in building better. This article presents a review on phase change material application situations in building, and several aspects are discussed: phase change material major applications in building, phase change material application areas, phase change material application types, phase change material thermal-physical properties, and phase change material application effects. The results of this research show that phase change material application areas are mainly concentrated into four parts of north latitude from 25°to 60°and south latitude from 25°to 40°. No matter in which region, the use of paraffin is the broadest (the maximum use frequency is up to 87.5%). For organic phase change material, the melting temperature and the heat of fusion vary from 19°C to 29°C and from 120 kJ/kg to 280 kJ/kg, respectively. The best phase change material application effect found is a reduction of 4.2°C for air temperature in room. This study has important and directive significance for the practical application of phase change material in building.

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Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is primarily a respiratory disease that has become a global pandemic. Close contact plays an important role in infection spread, while fomite may also be a possible transmission route. Research during the COVID-19 pandemic has identified long-range airborne transmission as one of the important transmission routes although lack solid evidence. Methods: We examined video data related to a restaurant associated COVID-19 outbreak in Guangzhou. We observed more than 40,000 surface touches and 13,000 episodes of close contacts in the restaurant during the entire lunch duration. These data allowed us to analyse infection risk via both the fomite and close contact routes. Results: There is no significant correlation between the infection risk via both fomite and close contact routes among those who were not family members of the index case. We can thus rule out virus transmission via fomite contact and interpersonal close contact routes in the Guangzhou restaurant outbreak. The absence of a fomite route agrees with the COVID-19 literature. Conclusions: These results provide indirect evidence for the long-range airborne route dominating SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the restaurant. We note that the restaurant was poorly ventilated, allowing for increasing airborne SARS-CoV-2 concentration.