Heat and Cold Storage with PCM—An Up to Date Introduction into Basics and Applications

The subject of the book is “heat and cold storage with PCM (phase change material)”. Currently there are plenty of publications in journals on different aspects of PCM technology, but there is no “introduction into basics and applications” available for a beginner or for somebody who works in one aspect of PCM technology and wants to get a general overview. The book is intended to fill this gap for researchers, graduate, and PhD students, mainly within science and engineering. The book summarizes and explains the most important basics and applications in a single text. The focus is on the explanation of general concepts and their discussion on selected examples. To go beyond an introduction, each chapter supplies many references with focus on such references that serve as an introduction into a special aspect, interesting websites, and other similar information. The book also contains many derivations of basic equations, examples, graphs and tables. To make reading easier, the appendix also includes a list of the most important definitions.As an introduction, the chapters cover all aspects starting from basic theoretical background to materials analysis and modification, storage design, storage integration, and different application examples. Special focus is on applications in buildings, because this is where the potential to apply PCM is very high.

Dr. Harald Mehling, born: 03.08.1966 Education: M.A. (SUNY Buffalo, USA), 1992; Diploma Physics, University of Wurzburg (Germany), 1995; Ph.D., University of Wurzburg (Germany), 1998Since 1995 working at the Bavarian Center for applied Energy Research, since 1998 Group leader "Latent heat storage"Coordinator of the BMWA funded strategic project "Innovative PCM-technology" (budget about 6 Mio €, 1999-2004)Organizer of two workshops on latent heat storageAuthor or co-author of about 50 publications, with more than 20 reviewedBooks contributions (4 chapters): Thermal energy storage for sustainable energy consumption – fundamentals, case studies and design; NATO Science series II. Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry – Vol. 234, Springer, 2007, ISBN 978–1–4020–5289–7 Editor: H.O.PaksoyLuisa F. Cabeza is Professor on Thermal Engineering at the University of Lleida (Lleida, Spain). She graduated on Chemical Engineering and Industrial Engineering in 1992 at University Ramon Llull (Barcelona, Spain), in 1995 she got an MBA and in 1996 her PhD on Industrial Engineering at the same university. From 1996 to 1998 she worked at the Eastern Regional Research Center, Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture (Philadelphia, USA). In 1999 she joined the University of Lleida as Assistant Professor, and she became Full Professor in 2006. She lead the Research Group on Applied Energy at the same university, today a research group with 25 researchers, recognised by several Spanish Agencies for its work.