Encapsulated Inorganic Materials for Building Thermal Energy Storage Applications

Thermal energy storage (TES) can have many uses in buildings and contribute to increased energy efficiency in the form of increased renewable energy fraction, reduced emissions, increased efficiency in HVAC equipment and reduced peak loads as well as to increased indoor comfort in reduced temperature swings and excess temperatures. Of the types of TES used, thermochemical materials (TCM) and phase change materials (PCM) are receiving much focus due to their associated advantages compared to sensible TES. TCM storage is in need of research regarding both materials as well as systems in order to find reliable and useful system solutions energy saving in building application. PolyMaterials App, LLC (PolyMaterials) is proposing to develop encapsulated inorganic thermal storage materials developed at low cost with high thermal energy density, and can effectively applied in building ceiling panel material for energy saving applications Our developed encapsulated materials will address the reduction in of sub-cooling effect, incongruent melting and phase segregation in phase change material using nanomaterial. The encapsulated materials also address in drastic reduction in corrosiveness, and can be easily applied in building celling roof panel. The uniqueness of the proposed research is the development of low cost industrially scalable PCM coating using an innovative encapsulation technique and further, uses the encapsulated material to make ceiling panel for building application. The Staff member in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Building Envelope & Urban Systems Research Group would like to participate in SBIR Phase II for validation of our developed technology for energy saving application as a subcontractor in Phase II. Dawnbreaker has identified the business opportunity, and we will be working from beginning of Phase I to Phase II program for commercialization of the technology for building applications. Besides, the thermal panel will find applications in commercial building, household building, government building and various commercial enterprises, construction industry, the automobile industry and the aerospace industry. The encapsulated PCM can also be applied to textile as well as health related cooling and heating applications. Our technology can also be applied in thermal systems in spacecraft, cooling food and drink and conditioning of buildings applications.