Experimental and numerical assessment of using coconut oil as a phase‐change material for unconditioned buildings

Abstract

The efficacy of integrating organic coconut oil (co-oil) phase-change material (PCM) into an unconditioned building with a lightweight envelope is explored experimentally and numerically for heat gain reduction. In what we think is the first test of its kind for co-oil PCM, twin side-by-side single-room buildings (with and without PCM) are constructed and studied experimentally under ambient weather conditions. The effects of the co-oil on the thermal performance of the buildings are investigated with respect to the window orientation (east, west, north and south). Furthermore, numerical simulation of the buildings is carried out to evaluate the contribution of the co-oil to their thermal performance and to determine the effect of the co-oil layer thickness on the heat storage capacity. Moreover, by employing a simplified heat transfer analysis, an approximate relation for the optimal thickness of co-oil PCM layer is developed. Experimental and numerical results show that co-oil PCM can be a promising solution to improve the indoor thermal environment. It is found that with a south-facing window equipped with co-oil PCM, the indoor temperature is lowered by 23.8% compared to the case without PCM, when an optimal PCM layer of~4 cm in thickness is embedded in the wall. K E Y W O R D Sbuilding envelopes, coconut oil, latent heat storage, phase change material, thermal comfort

Climate-Based Analysis for the Potential Use of Coconut Oil as Phase Change Material in Buildings

“…Jeon et al [30] studied the influence of coconut oil impregnated biochar that is produced out of waste material from pine cone, sawdust, and paper mill sludge as latent heat storage insulation. Alqahtani et al experimentally and numerically explored the use of coconut oil as a phase change material in the building envelope in an unconditioned building for semi-arid regions [6]. The results showed a reduction of 5.2 • C for the indoor temperature while using coconut oil for the wall structure.…”

“…MTR reveals the highest temperature decrease that occurs in the room on one specific day of the entire year. It can be calculated by Equation (6).…”

“…Phase change materials (PCM) can compensate for the lack of thermal mass without overloading the building structure [4][5][6]. They act as added thermal mass to the building construction, working as thermal energy storage (TES) [6,7].…”

“…Phase change materials (PCM) can compensate for the lack of thermal mass without overloading the building structure [4][5][6]. They act as added thermal mass to the building construction, working as thermal energy storage (TES) [6,7]. PCM absorb heat over the daytime and can reduce indoor temperature fluctuations due to their latent heat storage capacity [8,9].…”

A comprehensive investigation of the mathematical models for a packed bed latent heat thermal energy storage system

“…Latent heat TES (LHTES) system is a pivotal technology of the TES system, and it has high energy efficiency, high energy density, and approximate constant operating temperature. Therefore, LHTES system has been widely applied in the recovery and utilization of waste heat, temperature control of electronic devices, solar energy utilization, and so on 4‐6 …”