Influence of phase change materials on thermal comfort, greenhouse gas emissions, and potential indoor air quality issues across different climatic regions: A critical review

Abstract

There has been growing interest in applying phase change materials (PCMs) in buildings owing to their energy conservation/latent heat storage properties and potential to improve thermal comfort. Various reviews have extensively discussed the thermophysical properties of PCMs and their energy-saving potential in buildings. However, comprehensive reviews on the indoor thermal/ personal comfort behavior of PCMs under different climates remain limited. Therefore, this study aims to present a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of the impact of PCMs on indoor thermal comfort levels in buildings located in cities within different subclimate zones and their personal cooling effect when integrated with clothing (vest). In addition, greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation potentials and indoor air pollutant emission properties of PCM-enhanced buildings were also reviewed. Hundreds of published articles of PCMs in PubMed and Scopus databases, including a manual search approach, were utilized. The results from this state-of-the-art study have shown that incorporating PCMs in buildings satisfactorily reduced the indoor air temperature of most buildings located in hot climate (BSh, BWh) zones, but very limited studies have been performed in the cold (Dfc, BSk) environments. In general, there was an improvement in the thermal comfort levels of the PCM-enhanced buildings. However, these were mostly assessed using indices such as predicted mean vote, predicted percentage of dissatisfied, comfort index, and total discomfort change, without any comprehensive survey studies (eg, based on

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