Assessing the feasibility of impregnating phase change materials in lightweight aggregate for development of thermal energy storage systems

摘要

This paper assesses the feasibility of impregnation/encasement of phase change materials (PCMs) inlightweight aggregates (LWAs). An impregnation process was adopted to carry out the encasement studyof two different PCMs in four different LWAs. The leakage of the impregnated/encased PCMs was studiedwhen they were submitted to freeze/thawing and oven drying tests, separately. The results confirmedthat, the impregnation/encasement method is effective with respect to the large thermal energy storagedensity, and can be suitable for applications were PCMs cannot be incorporated directly such as asphaltroad pavements.