article · Scientific Reports
Wood fibre provides an environmentally friendly, low-density, and chemically inert supporting structure for composite phase change materials. Combining wood fibre with a eutectic mixture of stearic and capric acid creates an insulation composite that undergoes phase transitions within comfortable indoor temperatures. An evaluation across different climate regions examined the effects of this composite on fuel consumption, operating costs, and carbon emissions in buildings. Across tested configurations, energy savings ranged from 23.5 percent to 52.7 percent, with the highest performance achieved by the thickest tested formulation at 0.1 metres. Compared to standard insulation, the top-performing composite delivered between 1.33 and 1.74 times greater cost reductions depending on the climate region. In addition, economic analyses showed investment payback periods spanning from 0.37 to 5.81 years across the evaluated fuels and regional settings.
Heating and cooling buildings accounts for substantial energy consumption and carbon emissions. Developing effective thermal storage using eco-friendly materials such as wood fibre can lower reliance on active heating and cooling. Demonstrating that bio-based phase change composites can cut energy use by up to half, with payback periods under six years, offers a practical route towards more sustainable and affordable building operations.
This technology is aimed at building insulation applications for the construction and energy retrofit sectors. The primary beneficiaries would be building developers, insulation manufacturers, and property managers seeking to cut heating and cooling costs. The research represents applied testing through performance and cost simulations across climate zones, indicating the material concept is in an applied development stage rather than commercially ready for immediate deployment.
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Wood fiber is a great potential supportive material for creating a new composite the phase change materials (PCM) due to its beneficial qualities, including high sorption competency, low density, enviro -friendliness, economic effectiveness, and chemical inertness. The main objective of this paper is to study the effect of using the wood fiber/eutectic mixture of stearic and capric acid on the fuel, cost, and carbon emission-saving potentials for various PCM cases. Which experiences a phase transition within the thermally pleasant temperature range of buildings, used for the building's thermal energy storing purposes and consumption cost saving. The energy performance analysis was carried out for buildings incorporated with stearic and capric acid eutectic mixture of PCM with wood fiber-based insulation material (INS) in different climate regions. The results showed that the largest energy-saving capacity belongs to PCM5. The energy saving reaches 52.7% for PCM5 for a thickness of 0.1 m. The PCM1, PCM2, PCM3, PCM4 can provide energy saving rates of 23.5%, 34.3%, 44.7% and 50.5%, respectively. INS-PCM5 can provide about 1.74-, 1.5-, and 1.33 times larger cost savings than INS in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th regions for all fuels. The payback period varies between 0.37 and 5.81 years regarding the fuel and Region. Finally, the results indicate that the proposed composite provided a promising energy-saving potential in building applications by reducing.
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DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-34616-8
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