Energy and environmental problems have become the key factors restricting social development during the recent years. Therefore, in order to promote the process of social industrialization and build a saving-oriented society, it is imperative to increase the effort to develop energy-saving materials. Phase change materials can solve the problem that energy supply and demand don't match in time and space, and improve the energy efficiency. They are a type of ideal energy-saving materials, combined with a suitable porous matrix to strengthen the process of heat storage and discharge. A review on preparation and investigation of composite phase change materials with porous matrixes was made in this paper, in which the preparation methods, the selection of porous matrixes and their practical applications in various fields were analyzed.