A REVIEW OF NEW MATERIALS USED FOR BUILDING INTEGRATED SYSTEMS

Abstract

Solar energy has a significant impact on the environment, so the development of new technologies in this field is very important for many reasons and is subject of many researches nowadays. Incorporation of phase change materials (PCMs) into building structures has been found as useful for reduction of temperature fluctuations, while maintaining the thermal comfort. Numerous methods were developed by previous researchers using this type of materials. This paper reviews some latest publications on the use of new materials in buildings, covering PCMs, nanomaterials and nanofluids, current building applications and their thermal performance analyses. These materials have predictable applications in buildings for effective use of solar energy. There are large numbers of PCMs that melt and solidify at a wide range of temperatures, making them attractive in a number of applications. Also, nanofluid technology has been developed in the past decade. Nanofluids have a great potential for solar thermal applications, especially because of their specific heat and thermal conductivity increasing. Uses of hybrid nanofluids for solar thermal collectors are expected to give excellent performance improvement. This paper also investigates the feasibility of using PCMs for thermal management of Building Integrated Solar Thermal Systems (BISTS).