Review on phase change materials and their applications.

Through the use of Phase Change Material (PCM), thermal energy is stored in the form of latent heat. PCMs have the capacity to store a large amount of energy in a compact package. The amount of energy contained within PCMs is determined by the charging temperature and time.Organic, inorganic, and eutectic PCMs are the different categories of PCMs currently used in cooling and heating applications. PCMs have been used widely in latent heat storage systems for HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning), textiles, helmets, heat pumps, spacecraft, electronic chips, and building applications. The subcooling cycles with phase change materials are used to improve the Coefficient of Performance (COP) of refrigeration cycle. The theoretical resultshows that improvement of COP for different operating temperature of the condenser is in the range of 4-25%. Other than refrigeration and air conditioning applications, PCMs can be used in many applications such as a temperature damper in electronic chips by preventing it from overheating. PCMs can be employed for cooling of buildings by maintaining the constant temperature during the day. The numerous methods of thermal energy storage and PCM applications in various fields are discussed in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]