C36 -- Decision Support Tool for Designing Hybrid TES Materials for Construction Applications PDF

Deep renovation of buildings should cut 36% of their energy consumption by 2030, and thus reducing EU’s energy import dependency, creating growth, innovation, and employment, reducing fuel poverty, and resulting in more comfortable and healthier buildings. According to the existing Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, European countries need to determine the minimum energy performance requirements for new structures as well as for renovated buildings. To this end, action 5 of the Communication “Towards an integrated strategic energy technology plan: Accelerating the European energy system transformation” refers to the “Development of new materials and technologies, for the market uptake of energy efficiency solutions for buildings”. The application of a wide range of nano-enabled materials will make available a customizable element design for each building architectural style and enhancing it with powerful renewable energy generation features, optimizing their efficiency by maintaining the optimum operational parameters, modernizing the envelope, and increasing its economic and aesthetic value. In this framework, the methodology for delivering decision support services for evaluating alternative hybrid energy storage schemes in building materials is presented. Multiphysics and multiscale materials modelling are presented for evaluating the thermal properties of innovative composites using a high sorptive industrial mineral carrying PCMs. The goal is to utilize inorganic and low cost highly porous expanded perlite for absorbing paraffin and encapsulating it in a thin film geopolymer coating. The paraffin provides a way for exploiting the latent heat enhancing the thermal mass of the building shell able to absorb or release thermal energy, behaving as a thermal capacitor. In this study both sorption capacity and penetration absorbency models are presented to estimate the inter and intra-particle sorption capacity, able to evaluate the volume of paraffin that can be absorbed translated to heat storage capacity. The roadmap is to adapt models to simulators for defining both building’s retrofit and new constructions.