Experimental investigation of phase change material supported interior plaster applications: An example of cotton fiber plaster

According to studies, it is obvious that phase change materials (PCM) have a satisfactory thermal performance, but it is necessary to develop new building materials and produce different solutions for special applications with PCM in the building industry. In many studies, PCMs have been tested by adding them to construction materials by using methods such as immersion, macroencapsulation and direct addition. Microencapsulated PCMs were preferred in studies by mixing directly into the building material. In this study, the main purpose is to test the performance of the material by mixing two different PCMs, (both microencapsulated and not), to cotton fiber plaster (CFP). Therefore, it is aimed to develop and characterize a new composite building material formed by adding PCM to cotton fiber plaster. Accordingly, in the designed method, it is aimed to test the contribution of the CFP mixture with PCM to reduce the heating load of two equivalent rooms in Tunceli Munzur University. According to the results, in the comparison of rooms with PCM1 and PLS, the temperature difference is 1.7 oC when the heaters are operated, while the temperature difference is 0.5oC when the heater is turned off. This showed that the room with PCM1 went into the melting process and absorbed the energy of the room. For this reason, the room with PCM1 operates at a lower temperature. There was a difference of 0.105 kWh in the room with CFP, 0.106 kWh in the room with PCM1 and 0.72 kWh in the room with PCM2 between the amount of energy needed and the amount of energy produced in the heating season in which the experiments were carried out. Accordingly, the system meets the amount of energy needed in March with the energy it produces.The data obtained show that non-microencapsulated PCM contributes more to energy saving than microencapsulated.