Special Issue Article

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

2017, Vol. 9(6) 1–20
Ó The Author(s) 2017
A review about phase change material DOI: 10.1177/1687814017705844
journals.sagepub.com/home/ade
cold storage system applied to solar-
powered air-conditioning system

Lin Zheng, Wei Zhang and Fei Liang

Abstract
Phase change material cold storage system could improve the efficiency and stability of the solar-powered air-condition-
ing system and the building thermal environment. This article is a novel investigation of the phase change materials’ usage
in cold storage system and the phase change material cold storage working principles and features that are applied in the
different solar-powered air-conditioning systems as cited in the recent publications. This involves phase change material
cold storage system, solar-powered air-conditioning system, and the commercial market evaluation. To reduce the inter-
mittent solar energy operation, the energy storage system is quite essential. Currently, the popular method is advanced
phase change material cold storage. Using phase change materials in the energy storage systems, the heat exchangers
and thermal control systems are the potential techniques. This article also reviewed the phase change material cold stor-
age when applied in the solar-powered air-conditioning system based on the previous study. This article could benefit fur-
ther research in the solar-powered air-conditioning field as integrated to the phase change material cold storage system
and help to understand the commercial market development trend. For further studies, it was suggested that the optimal
design of solar-powered cooling system could be employed by phase change material storage/release cooling dynamical
control to improve the building thermal environment.

Keywords
Phase change material, cold storage system, solar energy, solar air-conditioning, phase change material application

Date received: 11 December 2016; accepted: 28 March 2017

Academic Editor: Shuli Liu

Introduction energy during summer, and apply for winter, which is

The comfortable, modern living conditions are attained
by vast energy consumption.1 The air-conditioning sys-
tem takes up over half the electricity usage in the build-
ing services systems. The traditional air-conditioning
system usage is based on the non-renewable energy
sources. In contrast, the application of the clean energy
can avoid the problem of the environmental pollution
and energy consumption. So the application of the
solar-powered air-conditioning system has been chosen
as a privileged refrigeration system.2 Because the solar
energy is intermittent and has low energy density, it is
efficient to use the excess solar energy from daytime
and save the energy for the night, or store the solar
not synchronized between the energy generation and
consumption.3 The solar energy storage system is pro-
posed. To solve the serious problems, some studies con-
ducted theoretical analysis and experimental studies.
The cold storage system is found to store the cold
energy using a storage medium and release energy as
College of Architecture and Environment, Sichuan University, Chengdu,
China
Corresponding author:
Wei Zhang, College of Architecture and Environment, Sichuan University,
Chengdu 610065, China.
Email: xskin821@163.com

Creative Commons CC-BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
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open-access-at-sage).
2 Advances in Mechanical Engineering
needed, which is widely used in building air-
conditioning system. The cold storage system in the
air-conditioning applications is classified by the differ-
ent storage mediums. In the recent developments, the
common methods to achieve a cold storage are water
and ice and latent heat storage systems (phase change
materials (PCMs)).4,5 The latent heat storage uses the
latent heat of PCM when the phase changes to energy
storage. For a solar-powered cooling system, the cold
energy produced by solar air-conditioning during
sunny days is stored to be used during cloudy days.
Based on the advantages of PCMs’ energy storage, it is
widely used in the different applications in solar energy
storage system and building efficiency field.6 Also,
PCM cold storage system helps to reduce the mismatch
between the energy supply and demand. At the same
time, the system has higher energy storage density, a
smaller size, and a relatively narrower temperature
range during the melting and freezing processes.7,8
This review seeks to analyze the solar-powered air-
conditioning system when integrated with the PCM
cold storage system, not only regarding the develop-
ments, classification, and application of the PCM mate-
rials in the cold storage system with current cited
literatures but also the different kinds of solar-powered
air-conditioning working principles, also with the cold
storage system, and the mainstream commercial market
conditions is concluded. First, the review introduced
the air-conditioning system with cold storage system,
introduced how to combine the cold storage system
with air-conditioning system, and emphasized the sig-
nificance and importance about cold storage system
and then emphasized the advancement of PCM in cold
storage system, concretely introduced the develop-
ments, classification, and application in the air-
conditioning system. Also, the article reviewed different
types of solar-powered air-conditioning systems, the
advantages of the solar energy, and then summarized
the current research progress on application of cold
storage system with different types of solar-powered
air-conditioning.
Solar-powered air-conditioning system
with PCM cold storage technology
Under conventional air-conditioning system, there exist
two subsystems: the refrigeration cycle system and the
cooling cycle system. The refrigeration cycle subsystem
includes evaporator, condenser, throttle valve, and
compressor. While the cooling cycle system only con-
tains refrigerant, which flows inside the refrigeration
cycle. The refrigerant in the cooling pipe should be
cooled water or other refrigerants.
For the common air-conditioning design, it usually
considers the different using occasions of time and
seasons. The chiller, which is the combination of eva-
porator, condenser, throttle valve, and compressor, is
selected based on the maximum air-conditioning load
during the using time. So the problem comes with the
situation that the efficiency of the machine is very low
and the standby machine is idle, when the refrigerant is
not working at full load, while the machine charges
with a lot of electricity consumption and power grid
pressure during air-conditioning load peak period.
The solar-powered air-conditioning system with cold
storage technology uses solar energy, which is environ-
ment friendly and the cold storage system can be oper-
ated under the low air-conditioning load period such as
the night. Also, the energy will be stored in the cold
storage tank and then release the energy to air-
conditioning system when in the air-conditioning load
peak period. Therefore, solar energy storage air-
conditioning can reduce the air-conditioning load and
energy consumption, and improve the efficiency of the
machine and the entire air-conditioning system.
A typical solar-powered air-conditioning system
integrated with PCM cooling system is shown in
Figure 1.
In the air-conditioning systems, PCM slurries can be
pumped directly as a secondary cooling medium into
air handling units or stored for load shifting. The slurry
flows like conventional chilled water while providing
larger cooling capacity. The high energy content of the
slurry allows significant reductions in the size of the
pipes, pumps, and storage tanks, as well as air handling
and chilling costs compared with the conventional
chilled water systems. In Figure 2, there are three cold
storage forms of PCM cooled in the evaporator water
used as cooling fluid in the air handler. Each of the
possible configurations of the cold circuit has some dis-
advantages, so the choice of the variant is a matter of
compromise.9,10
A lot of experiments and researches have been com-
pleted to design and operate the air-conditioning sys-
tem integrated with PCM cold storage. But the study
of PCM cold storage system is not in depth, especially
in improving the stability of the energy storage system.
PCM cold storage system
The cold thermal energy storage (TES) is a relatively
new technology with growing interest for a huge num-
ber of thermal applications.11 This helps to reduce a
mismatch between the energy’s supply and demand.
The energy storage media are classified as chilled water,
ice-making types, and PCMs.12 The chilled water stor-
age is based on maintaining the cooling charged water
and warm returned water. Many studies have presented
cold water storage system. The use of ice, as a cooling
thermal storage, includes the ice balls’ use, ice
Zheng et al.
Figure 1. Solar-driven refrigeration system integrated with PCM cold storage system.
harvesting, and ice-on-coil, and ice slurries. The ice
slurry is a mixture of water (ice and liquid water) and a
glycol.13 In the popular ways of cold storage nowadays,
PCM has obvious advantages, using PCMs is interest-
ing due to the advantage of a high ratio between the
amount of heat stored and temperature variation.14,15
In the current researches, in order to better use the
PCM in the cold storage system, it is necessary to solve
several problems such as leaking, phase separation, and
corrosion of PCM, and a novel method PCM microen-
capsulation (MEPCM) has been realized.16–18
Development of PCMs in cold storage field
The use of PCMs has been integrated in the energy
storage system in the buildings since 1980. Their first
applications were used in the heating and cooling by
Nagano et al.19 Today, the different PCM application
utilizations are developed. A research into energy stor-
age system for cooling and heating remains and is being
considered for waste heat recovery, energy generation,
building energy conservation, and air-conditioning.20
Literature review shows that several studies have
been carried out in the field of energy storage and
PCM. Kenisarin and Mahkamov21 focus on the assess-
ment of thermal properties of PCM, methods of energy
transfer enhancement, and design configurations of
cold storage facilities in solar energy utilizing building.
3
Based on the assessment of the thermal properties of
PCM, the cost of PCM is quite high, which is very
important for development, when developing commer-
cial latent heat storage products at acceptable, stability
of thermal properties of these substances should be
tested for at least 1000 thermal cycles. Sharma et al.22
summarize the investigation and analysis of the avail-
able TES systems incorporating PCM for use in differ-
ent applications. C Tzivanidis et al.23 simulated the
phase change process using the effective thermal capac-
ity function, and the results showed that the main para-
meters of the system are pipe spacing, PCM layer
thickness, pipe depth within the ceiling, cooling water
inlet temperature, night cooling duration, and PCM
properties (thermal conductivity, phase change heat
and ends of phase change temperature range), which is
determined experimentally for PCM suitable for air-
conditioning applications.
Liu24 studied a novel composite PCM of lauric–myr-
istic–stearic acid ternary eutectic mixture/expanded gra-
phite (LA–MA–SA/EG) (12/1, W/W). It was described
by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier trans-
form infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, and differential
scanning calorimetry (DSC). The results showed that
LA–MA–SA coincidentally distributed in the porous
network structure of EG, the prepared LA–MA–SA/EG
composite with PCM has suitable thermal properties for
the energy storage applications in energy buildings.
4 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 2. PCM cold storage: (a) PCM used as cold storage, water used as cooling fluid in evaporator and air handler; (b) PCM
pumped into air handler, water cooled in the evaporator; and (c) PCM cooled in the evaporator water used as cooling fluid in air
handler.

Xia et al.25 developed a novel and suitable phase
change composite material for cold storage condensa-
tion heat recovery system, which has good potential
application on cold storage system in building
air-conditioning system. The heat storage applications
presented are as a part of solar water-heating systems,
solar greenhouse system.
Y Li et al.26 put a concept of energy-saving building
envelope, which is used to guide the building envelope
material selection and thermal performance design.
Zheng et al.
The study researches lightweight building integrated
with PCM, and the EnergyPlus software with building
model validated by experiment data is used to research
the indoor thermal environment improvement with
PCM under typical weather conditions of five climates
zones in China. The results show that PCM can control
the indoor temperature rises and temperature fluctua-
tions effectively, which is very correlative to the air-
conditioning system design, and indirectly reduces the
energy consumption.
MEPCM slurries have large apparent specific heats
during the phase change interval, which enhances the
heat transfer rate between the fluid and the tube wall.
The key question to study MEPCM is whether a com-
petitive charging/discharging rate could be achieved.
Zhang and Niu27 studied two performance indices of
TES system apparatus. They compared MEPCM slurry
and stratified water storage tank, newly defined the
volumetric thermal storage capacity at a given tempera-
ture difference, and the charging/discharging rate varia-
tion over time. The results showed that overall
charging/discharging rate of the MEPCM storage tank
was much lower than stratified water storage tank.
When designing the cold storage system using the
MEPCM slurry, the thermal conductivity of the slurry
is essential. To measure the thermal conductivity of a
liquid, one of the most reliable and well-known meth-
ods is a transient line heat source technique. X Wang
et al.28 researched on temperature-dependent effective
thermal conductivity of PCMs wall based on steady-
state method in a thermal chamber. In the research,
two walls with 1.5 m 3 1.5 m dimension composed of
stabilized PCMs Bricks and Portland vitrified bricks,
respectively, were built and tested by a steady-state way
in a thermal chamber. The results showed a positive lin-
ear relationship of l with increase in wall surface tem-
perature for ordinary vitrified brick wall as well as the
PCMs wall in solid and liquid states.
Wang et al.29 studied a novel type SA/poly(methyl
methacrylate) (PMMA) composite MEPCM with a
shell structure by adopting ultraviolet curing dispersion
polymerization. This kind of MEPCM technology has
a single phase surface, regular spherical structures, a
grain size of 2–3 mm, and a smooth surface, and there
is no chemical reaction between the PMMA and palmi-
tic acid (PA) which indicates that this kind of MEPCM
is more stable.
Özonur et al.30 used coco fatty acid mixture as the
core material to prepare MEPCM, the shell material
was gelatin-Arabic gum, and a grain diameter of 1 mm
via the coagulation technique. The study showed that
the MEPCM could decrease the heat absorption rate
and heat release rate and increased phase change tem-
perature compared with the coco fatty acid.
Zhang31 analyzed the stearic acid/polycarbonate
MEPCM with SA through the solution casting method.
5
There was no chemical reaction between the SA and
PA. The study found that the rate of heat storage and
release was increased by 23% by adding the 3 wt% iron
powder, which improved the phase change rate of the
composite materials.
Currently, the inorganic high polymer as the shell
material of the MEPCM has drawn people’s attention.
It has potential and critical application in the areas of
heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, refrigeration,
and heat exchange.
Classification of PCMs
PCMs are classified into three groups based on their
composition: organic, inorganic, and eutectic com-
pounds, as shown in Figure 3. The phase change tem-
perature range and the enthalpy change are the key
thermal properties of phase change slurries. Such para-
meters identify the heat storage capacity and their
potential applications. Compared to the conventional
fluids, a PCM exhibits high values of the apparent spe-
cific heat capacity during the phase change process.
Within the potential PCMs, paraffin has the advantage
of representing small density variation between the
solid and liquid phases.32,33
The paraffin is widely used as PCM but tend to have
poor thermal conductivities. This can be improved by
microencapsulation as this produces a high surface
area. To maximize the PCM performance, the thermal
heat transfer needs to be matched to the flow of heat to
it, for example, to the air flow in an air-conditioning
system. In the case of heat transfer systems, where slur-
ries of PCMs in fluids are used, the thermal conductiv-
ity of the fluid influences the system performance in
absorbing the thermal kinetic energy at the point of
heat input and releasing it for heat output.6,34
This article summarizes the thermal physical proper-
ties of some typical PCMs in three different types of
PCMs as shown in Tables 1 and 2.35
The commercial paraffin is cheap with moderate
heat storage density (200 kJ/kg), a wide range of melt-
ing temperature, stable chemical parameter, no phase
separation phenomenon, and little or no supercooling
effect. But their low thermal conductivity limits the
application. Also, the hydrate salt crystals are com-
monly used as PCMs, mainly because of its high ther-
mal storage density, high thermal conductivity, high
enthalpy, and the cost is affordable. The melting tem-
perature of the fatty acids and fatty acid esters is
between 30°C and 65°C. Compared with the other
organic PCMs, the fatty acids and fatty acid esters have
relatively high enthalpy, which indicates that they have
high heat capacity. Based on the proper melting tem-
perature range, high enthalpy, and little or no super-
cooling during the phase change transition, the fatty
6 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 3. Classification of PCMs.

Table 1. Organic phase change materials thermal physical properties.

Materials Melting temperature (°C) Enthalpy (kJ/kg) Thermal conductivity (W/(m K)) Density (kg/m3)

Elaieimic acid 16 148.5 0.149 (liquid, 38.6°C) 901 (liquid, 30°C)

981 (solid, 13°C)
Glyceric acid 64 185.4 0.162 (liquid, 68.4°C) 850 (liquid, 65°C)
989 (solid, 24°C)
Polyethylene glycol E600 22 127.2 0.189 (liquid, 38.6°C) 1129 (liquid, 25°C)
1232 (solid, 4°C)
Paraffins 64 173.6 0.167 (liquid, 63.5°C) 790 (liquid, 65°C)
0.346 (solid, 33.6°C) 916 (solid, 24°C)

Table 2. Inorganic phase change materials thermal physical properties.

Materials Melting temperature (°C) Enthalpy (kJ/kg) Thermal conductivity (W/(m K)) Density (kg/m3)

6 36 146.9 0.464 (liquid, 39.9°C) 1828 (liquid, 36°C)

0.469 (liquid, 61.2°C) 1937 (solid, 24°C)
6 29 190.8 0.540 (liquid, 38.7°C) 1562 (liquid, 32°C)
1.088 (solid, 23°C) 1802 (solid, 23°C)
48 265.7 0.653 (liquid, 85.7°C) 1937 (liquid, 84°C)
1.225 (solid, 23°C) 2070 (solid, 23°C)
6 89 162.8 0.490 (liquid, 95°C) 1550 (liquid, 95°C)
0.611 (solid, 37°C) 1636 (solid, 37°C)
6 117 168.6 0.570 (liquid, 120°C) 1450 (liquid, 120°C)
0.694 (solid, 90°C) 1569 (solid, 90°C)

acids and fatty acid esters are good for energy storage
applications.
Table 336 shows the comparison of the sensible heat
storage capacity between a rock bed water tank and the
latent heat storage using organic and inorganic com-
pounds. The advantages about latent heat is clearly
from the comparison, and the result also showed that
the inorganic compounds such as hydrated salt have a
volumetric thermal storage density, which is higher
than most of the organic compounds because of their
higher latent heat and density.
At present, many researchers have analyzed the fatty
acids as PCMs. The results showed that fatty acids are
suitable PCMs for the phase change heat storage
Zheng et al. 7

Table 3. Comparison between the different ways of heat storage.

Property Rock Water Inorganic PCM Organic PCM

Density, kg/m3 2240 1000 1600 800

Specific heat, kJ/kg 1.0 4.2 2.0 2.0
Latent heat, kJ/kg – – 230 230
Latent heat, kJ/m3 – – 368 368
Storage mass for J, kg 6700 16,000 4350 4350
Storage volume for J, m3 30 16 2.7 2.7
Relative storage mass 15 4 1.0 1.0
Relative storage volume 11 6 1.0 1.0

PCM: phase change material.

Table 4. The physical and thermal conductivity of fatty acids as PCM.39

Materials Density (kg/m3) Specific heat (kJ/(kg K)) Thermal conductivity

Solid Liquid Solid Liquid Liquid (W/(m K))

Capric acid (CA) 1004 878 1.9 2.1 0.153

Lauric acid (LA) 1007 862 1.7 2.4 0.150
Myristic acid (MA) 990 861 1.7 2.4 0.150
Palmitic acid (PA) 989 850 1.9 2.8 0.162
Stearic acid (SA) 965 848 1.6 2.2 0.172

systems. In particular, in the recent studies, the fatty
acids have been a hot issue in the PCM field.8,22,37
Because the fatty acids have many superior properties,
such as proper melting temperature range and high heat
capacity, the supercooling effect can be neglected during
the transition, with good chemical and thermal stability,
low cost, or small volume change (Table 4).37–39
Also, the thermal conductivity can be raised by add-
ing graphite, which improves the rate of thermal stor-
age and release. Based on the features, it is effective to
apply them to the thermal storage system, solar energy
storage, and other fields. Also, compared with the fatty
acids, the fatty acid esters have a lower phase change
temperature, so it is more effectively used in TES at
low, especially in solar-powered air-conditioning
systems.
Different solar-powered air-conditioning
systems integrated with PCM cold storage
Air-conditioning is defined as the temperature, humid-
ity, purification, and distribution of air current to meet
the needs of the space. It can achieve a lot of functions,
reduce the room temperature in the hot weather,
achieve desiccant, increase the indoor temperature in
the cold weather, air-conditioning can also extract the
essence of air, and improve air quality. The conven-
tional air-conditioning system is based on the non-
renewable sources of the energy, and the solar-powered
air-conditioning system not only uses clean energy
(solar energy) but also converts low-grade energy (solar
energy) into high-grade energy.40–42 What’s more, it is
important for the energy storage and environmental
protection. Due to the support from governmental poli-
cies in many countries, renewable energies (especially
solar and wind energies) are expanding their primary
energy use share of electricity generation. The positive
thing is that more and more people pay attention to
renewable energy usages.43–45 Hwang et al.46 provided
reviews of various solar cooling technologies based on
publications published until 2007 and classified them
into three groups as shown in Figure 4. Based on the
figure, there are two ways to achieve solar air-condi-
tioning, one is solar-electrical cooling then use electricity
to drive conventional compression chillers for refrigera-
tion, and another one is the solar thermal cooling sys-
tem, heat utilization of solar-powered refrigeration.
However, the solar photovoltaic systems are 4–5 times
more expensive than solar-powered thermal cooling sys-
tems.47 Thus, most of the solar-powered air-condition-
ing systems nowadays are solar absorption systems and
other solar-related systems like solar ejector systems
based on solar thermal utilization.48 And the heating
and cooling demand is more realistic compared to the
electricity demand. Therefore, solar-powered air-condi-
tioning technology refers to solar thermal cooling sys-
tem generally.49 The technology has a large potential
market; the solar cooling systems are still not competi-
tive compared to the traditional electricity-powered or
gas-fired air-conditioning systems.50
8 Advances in Mechanical Engineering
Figure 4. Classification of solar cooling technology options.
The main problems of the solar-powered air-condi-
tioning systems are its high primary cost, low system
performance, and seasonal matching for the solar
energy usage, which can be improved by cold storage
system. Different solar-powered air-conditioning sys-
tems have different types of cooling medium, here are
mainly four types: absorption refrigeration system,
adsorption refrigeration system, ejector refrigeration
system, and desiccant cooling system.44,51
Solar-powered absorption air-conditioning system
Absorption air-conditioning system is one of ordinary
refrigeration technologies. It has similar principle with
vapor compression system, that is, using liquid refriger-
ant evaporate and vaporize, absorb heat load from
cooling medium, and produce cooling effect.52,53 The
compressor consists of an absorber, generator, and
pump. Figure 5 shows the principle of the absorption.
The energy system and the working fluid are different.
There are many different researches about the absorp-
tion cycles combined with solar collector system. Escriva
et al.54 combined the absorption cycle with solar collector
system directly. It was shown that there was a balance in
regeneration temperature for the whole cycles. This tem-
perature is mainly depending on the solar collector and
the machine size. They also gave an example of how to
use parameters for a quick pre-sizing for Spain climates.
Said et al.55 made an experiment to design a solar-
powered absorption cooling technology with energy
storage system for a continuous operation, 24 h. The
design has two parts, one is continuous and another is
intermittent operation. The results show that the con-
tinuous cycle combined with heat storage system has
the highest coefficient of performance (COP). The COP
reflects the cooling capacity of air conditioning. The
higher COP value represents the better air-conditioning
refrigeration capacity.
Xu et al.56 used advance energy storage technology to
simulate the performance of a solar-powered absorption
cycle by building dynamic models. They used storage tech-
nology and the variable mass cold storage system to store
the solar energy. And the solar collector was used as a
regenerator and stores the refrigerant after condensation.
Agyenim et al.3 design a solar-powered absorption
cooling system combined with a cold storage system. A
12 m2 vacuum tube collectors were used to drive a 4.5-kW
chiller unit. The refrigerant is O/LiBr. The minimum tem-
perature is 80°C to active the chiller. The temperature of
chiller water was in the range of 7°C–16°C. The experi-
mental system was tested in Cardiff, United Kingdom. It
was found that the daily average electrical and thermal
COPs were 0.58 and 3.6, respectively. To better use this
kind of system, it is necessary to integrate with the cold
storage system. The major energy consumption was from
the chiller because it would consume electrical even though
the system stop to produce any cooling effect.
Al-Dadah et al.57 did an experiment about PCM
applied in the solar-powered air-conditioning system,
and the experiment uses propane as a refrigerant with
different lubrication oils in the energy storage system.
Zheng et al.
Figure 5. The principle of the solar-driven absorption air-conditioning system.
It was indicated that propane is the most miscible in
alkylated benzene AB300. After they experimentally
investigated the performance of a 1.3 kWc single-stage
absorption cycle with propane and AB300, the results
showed that the cycle equipped with heat pipes between
the absorber and the generator could increase the sys-
tem COP.
In the aspect of the simulation, Balghouthi et al.58
used the TRNSYS and EES programs to simulate the
system and the conditions. They found the effect of the
heat transfer coefficient and generator inlet temperature
on the COP and the cooling capacity. A large number
of TRNSYS simulations were executed to analyze a
suitable collector area, slope angle, and the size of the
energy storage tank. The design of cold storage tank
will have an effect on the application of PCM.
Zhai et al.59 experimentally studied the solar-
powered absorption air-conditioning with cold storage
system. A 24-story building was built in Jiangmen,
China, which consisted of hotels, business centers,
entertainment places, and an education center. The
solar system was installed on the roof of the building.
The system supplied hot water to the building for daily
use throughout the year and provided air-conditioning
for the education center, which was located on the
22nd floor. The schematic diagram of the cooling sys-
tem is shown in Figure 6.59
At present, the most widely used is the lithium-
bromide absorption chiller group. But its design and
9
operation are quite complex, and after a period of
working time, the chemical stability of the refrigerant is
decreased, so it is difficult to maintain a high vacuum
system, leading to a decline in the efficiency of the
system.60
At the same time, the initial investment of absorp-
tion refrigeration is relatively large, which limits its
development. These are the features of solar-powered
LiBr absorption air-conditioning system. The advan-
tages about solar-powered absorption air-conditioning
system are long maintenance cycle, the pump is the only
power component, combined with solar collectors sys-
tem without the need for expensive photovoltaic panels.
But there are some disadvantages which limit its devel-
opment, refrigeration performance of the absorption
system is lower than other cycles, and the system struc-
ture is complex.61,62
Solar-powered adsorption air-conditioning system
Using solar energy or other heat sources, adsorption
and desorption agent mixture and adsorbate formation
occur in the adsorption bed, releasing refrigerant with
high temperature and high pressure into the condenser
and the condenser refrigeration liquid into the evapora-
tor through the throttle valve.63,64 The adsorption cool-
ing system powered by low-grade thermal energy has
attracted much attention of the researchers. As it is
shown, the cycle includes two sorption chambers, a
10 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 6. The schematic diagram of the solar absorption cooling system of the experiment building.59

Figure 7. The principle of the solar-driven adsorption air-conditioning system.

condenser and evaporator. The refrigerant produces
the cooling effect when it is evaporated and the eva-
poration of refrigerant gas into the adsorption process
of generator. After being adsorbed, the refrigerant was
mixed to form new compounds.65 Figure 7 shows the
principle of the adsorption. The adsorption cycle can
achieve a COP up to 0.3–0.7 depending on the driving
heat temperature. The working fluids are generally car-
bon and silica gel. This systems heat source tempera-
ture requirement is lower than the similar cycles, so
that it is more appropriate to solar energy.66,67
Nowadays, there have been lots of researches about
the solar-powered adsorption cycle. Solmusx et al.68
experimentally investigated the balance adsorption
capacity of natural zeolite/water adsorption. Jribi
et al.69 simulated the behavior of a four-bed adsorption
cycle. The cycle was activated by carbon and R1234ze.
The result shows that to install the compact adsorbent
bed heat exchanger could improve the system
performance.
In terms of improving the cycle performance,
Voyiatzis et al.70 did a contemporary one-dimensional
model to find the optimum switching frequency. It was
found that the optimization based on the COP has a
lower switching frequency than based on the cooling
capacity. The feasibility about decreasing either the
thermofluid’s Fourier number or the bed’s Biot number
to improve the system performance is also shown.
Zheng et al.
Figure 8. The schematic diagram of the solar-powered continuous adsorption refrigeration system with latent heat storage unit.75
Miyazaki and Akisawa71 proposed a new cycle for
silica gel-water adsorption chillers. The research aims
to optimum the heat exchanger design and operating
conditionings to maximize the specific cooling capacity
of the silica gel/water adsorption chiller. The results
showed that the system performance could be optimized
by improving the heat exchanger design. Niazmand and
Dabzadeh72 found that the COP of the cycle depends on
the fin’s height. In their system, the optimum particle dia-
meter was 0.1–0.25 mm. Zhai et al.73 did an experimental
study on optimization of a solar-powered adsorption air-
conditioning system. They chose two adsorption chillers
to analysis. The results show that the solar-powered
adsorption could operate steadily, especially in the sum-
mer typically conditions, the system can work 8 h con-
tinuously. The COP of the system is 0.35. It indicated
that the system can save the energy directly.
Integrated with PCM cold storage system, AE Fadar
et al.74 developed the process based only on sensible
heat storage system and improved the system perfor-
mance. They suggested in this study the integration of a
latent heat storage unit containing PCM into the sys-
tem. A control and command system composed mainly
of a temperature regulator is shown in Figure 8.75
There are the features and product manufacturers of
solar-powered adsorption air-conditioning system. The
adsorption system powered by solar energy is greatly
used because it has advantages of renewability, without
pollution, and flexibility. This cycle does not need cool-
ing tower and low noise, low operation cost, and long
service life, it is also environment friendly. But the sys-
tem can provide a limited amount of cooling, and the
11
machine bed is prone to aging, the cycle is intermittent,
difficult to operate at night.76
Solar-powered ejector air-conditioning system
Figure 9 shows the principle of the solar-powered ejec-
tor air-conditioning system. Compared with the
conventional vapor compression refrigeration, in solar-
powered ejector air-conditioning system, generator and
ejector replace the compressor, refrigerant in the genera-
tor could produce the high temperature and high pres-
sure steam by the external heat source heating, the
steam enters into the ejector nozzle, velocity is called
supersonic, pressure and temperature were decreased,
thereby ejecting the refrigerant steam from an evapora-
tor, the two steam mixtures through the compression
tube in the diffuser, then the condensing pressure rises,
condensed into liquid at the outlet of the condenser,
refrigerant is divided into two parts, one way through
the pump pressure return generator, another way
through throttling after entering the evaporator, so the
refrigeration produced the refrigerant in the evaporator,
the ejector refrigeration cycle has been completed.77–80
A lot of studies had been done to investigate the per-
formance of the ejector cycles. Researchers used differ-
ent refrigerants in the simulation and experimental, the
investigation about the size of the ejector and the opti-
mum collector to the solar-powered ejector system. Jia
and Wenjian81 did a search for the optimum area ratios
for a 2 kW air cooled ejector cycle using R134a. They
made a one-dimensional model to design the ejector
cycle and studied the six different ejector throat areas
12 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 9. The principle of the solar-driven ejector air-conditioning system.

Figure 10. An ejector cooling system with PCM cold storage system.85

by adjusting the position of the spindle. The results
show that the cycle system cooling capacity was rele-
vant with area ratios and nozzle diameters, and the sys-
tem COP was linked to area ratios only.
X Ma et al.82 modified the ejector with a spindle to
control the primary flow. The results showed that when
the spindle moved toward the nozzle, the primary dis-
tance was decreased, it decreased the system cooling
capacity. They founded that an optimum area ratio could
make an optimum entrainment ratio and COP. The spe-
cial conclusion was that the increase in the generator tem-
perature would not always increase the system efficiency.
W Zhang et al.83 compared the performance of three
different solar collectors when powered the solar
ejector cycle for Mediterranean climate. The results
showed that the heat pipe collector covered with the
double glass would offer the best efficiency. Dennis
and Garzoli84 used TRNSYS to model a solar ejector
cycle with different geometry ejector and cold storage
system. They concluded that the cold storage system
could reduce the bad effect of intermittent solar energy.
An experimental schematic diagram about an ejector
cooling system with PCM cold storage system is shown
in Figure 10.85 X Chen et al.85 experimentally investi-
gated a PCM cold storage system integrated with ejec-
tor cooling system. The PCM storage tank was
analyzed as a heat exchanger, and the effectiveness of
the PCM storage tank was calculated at various mass
Zheng et al.
Figure 11. The PCM tank with finned copper tube in
solar-powered ejector cooling system.
flow rates. The experiment results indicated that the
increase in the mass flow rate could lead to the decrease
in the storage effectiveness. The system uses finned tube
filled inside a PCM vessel. The whole system includes
Figure 12. The principle of the solar-driven dehumidification air-conditioning system.88
13
ejector cooling cycle and PCM cold storage charging
and discharging cycle.
The PCM cold storage charging system is coupled
with the evaporator of the ejector cooling cycle. The
PCM tank with finned copper tube is shown in
Figure 11. The ejector cycles are simple to achieve and
it is inexpensive compared to other cycles. The market
share of the solar-powered ejector cooling system is not
very high. The disadvantages limit the development.
However, it is difficult to design the ejector. And the
performance coefficient of the system needs to be
improved. But the solar-powered ejector air-
conditioning system has lower installation, operating
costs and more stability operation.86,87
Solar-powered dehumidification air-conditioning
system
Figure 1288 shows the principle of the solar-powered
dehumidification air-conditioning system. This system
includes solid and liquid desiccant dehumidification
system; this system mainly relies on desiccant dehumi-
dification and evaporative cooling principle, and it can
realize the latent heat load and sensible heat load rate
separately. First, the fresh air is dried by the solid
wheels. The temperature will be increased by the sensi-
ble heat exchange device. To keep the temperature
being balance and reduce the air humidity, the low
humidity of the air will enter the evaporative cooler
firstly, then enter the room. Therefore the temperature
and humidity can be controlled and regulated. And the
14
Figure 13. An experimental schematic diagram of a solar energy and electric-driven desiccant cooling system.
regeneration temperature from the indoor air was
returned of solar collector outstanding heating. The
advantage of this system is no pollution and using low-
grade energy.89
Fong et al.90 used TRNSYS to investigate six different
configurations of solar desiccant cooling systems, direct
current powered vapor compression cycle powered by
photovoltaic panels or thermal panels, and an absorption
cycle. In the end, this whole system saved the energy up
to 35.2% compared to conventional air-conditioning sys-
tem. Li et al.91 studied the two-stage rotary desiccant air-
condition of 169 m2 electronic plant in China. It was
found that the system improves the indoor comfort
directly in hot and humid climate conditions.
Beccali et al.92 used TRNSYS to show the energy
and economic analysis of different desiccant cooling
systems. Three kinds of desiccant cooling systems were
analyzed. The results showed that the system with heat
pump had the best primary energy-saving effect. A
solar-powered desiccant air-conditioning system with
PCM was constructed at Tohoku University, Japan.
An experimental schematic diagram of the system is
shown in Figure 13.93 During night, the cold storage
system can store energy for daytime operation which
makes the system effective using relatively lower price
of electricity, which prevents total reliance on solar
energy. The system was tested in winter season and was
concluded that it can be operated both in day and night
economically.
Advances in Mechanical Engineering
The solar-powered dehumidification cooling system
are environmental friendly, using air as ventilation,
doesn’t need to deal with the chemical solution.
However, this system is not suitable for dry area. It is
difficult to control the system in the dry area. This
system requires maintenance due to moving parts in
the rotor wheel of the solid desiccant system. The crys-
tallization generally occurs in liquid desiccant systems
due to poor process control.94
Comparison of different solar-powered
air-conditioning systems
In Table 1, the important characteristics of different
types of solar-powered refrigeration systems are sum-
marized. It reviews thermally powered cycles include
absorption, adsorption, desiccant cooling, and ejector
cycles. The comparison of advantages, disadvantages,
cop, and application of different solar-powered air-con-
ditioning systems are shown in Table 5.
According to the comparisons of solar-powered air-
conditioning system, the ejector refrigeration is one of
the most promising technologies because of its relative
simplicity and low capital cost when compared to
absorption refrigeration. Ejector refrigeration seems to
be the most appropriate system for large-scale refrig-
eration. An ejector refrigeration system has a simple
construction, few parts, and it is not subjected to chem-
ical corrosion. It uses low-grade waste heat from power
Zheng et al.
Table 5. Comparison of different solar-powered air-conditioning systems (reference to Pridasawas and Lundqvist).95
Advantages
Absorption Only one moving part—pump;
systems possible to utilize low
temperature heat supply
Adsorption No moving parts (except
systems valves); low operating
temperatures can be achieved
Desiccant Environmentally friendly, water
cooling systems is used as the working fluid;
system can be integrated with
ventilation and heating systems;
driving temperature is quite low,
so temperature solar collector
can be used
Ejector Low temperature heat source
refrigeration can be utilized; low operating
systems and installation costs
plants, incinerators, and industrial processes to gener-
ate useful refrigeration.96,97
Commercial market situation of solar
air-condition system
Based on the report, Solar Thermal Utilization Market
by Solar Heating & Cooling (SHC) Program, the report
collected from 60 countries and covered 95% of the
global market, the solar air-conditioning system has
promising developments worldwide. China and the
European markets have the largest solar energy utiliza-
tion system. The vacuum tube collector with 71.1% of
the market share is the leader in the heat collector tech-
nology. But as the owner of second largest solar energy
utilization market, the most commonly collector is flat
collector in the European market.
Regarding solar energy storage system, according to
the report from Energy Trend, in 2013, Germany imple-
mented a new subsidy bill, which used the solar air-
conditioning system to be integrated with the energy
storage system. Also, Japan cited to build the largest
solar energy storage system in the world.
With regard to the observation of the global market
research from the institution Energy Trend, to raise the
durability and reliability of the renewable energy, the
combination of the energy generation and storage will
become the mainstream of the solar energy industry
development.
15
Disadvantages COP Application
Evaporating temperature in 0.6–0.8 Refrigeration
using LiBr-H2O as working
medium; fairly complex, difficult
to service
Unsuitable to use at high 0.3–0.8 Refrigeration
capacities and can cause long-
term problems; difficult to
achieve air-tight; sensitive to low
temperature; an intermittent
system
Difficult to achieve good control 0.5–1.5 Air-conditioning
in a humid area; the system
requires maintenance due to
moving parts in the rotor wheel
of the solid desiccant system;
crystallization generally occurs
in liquid desiccant systems due
to poor process control
Low COP; complicated design 0.3–0.8 Air-conditioning
of the ejector; only work in a
narrow range of ambient
temperatures
In 2016, two companies from China and Denmark
have established a new firm to specialize in cross-seasonal
solar energy storage technologies. Thus, the solar air-
condition system with the energy storage system is the
development trend of the solar energy utilization technol-
ogy. Taking European countries, as an example, Table 6
shows the market research of solar-powered air-condi-
tioning system in European countries.98
As noted in the reports, the current solar energy stor-
age system is not widely applied, and the main consid-
erations are the primary system cost, the capacity of the
energy storage system, and the size of the whole system.
Based on the PCM cold storage system’s features, it has
advantages in the commercial market application.
Discussion and conclusion
1. The PCM cold storage working principles and
features, as applied in the solar-powered air-
conditioning system based on the preliminary
study, were reviewed, including the PCM cold
storage system, solar air-conditioning system,
and the commercial market evaluation. The
most common system is the solar energy
absorption refrigeration that is integrated with
the PCM storage system. With the current
development, the solar-driven ejector system
also has a bright potential with its relative sim-
plicity and low capital cost.
16 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Table 6. Market research of solar-powered air-conditioning system in European countries.98

Country City Project site Rated Machine types

refrigerating
capacity (kW)

Austria Sattledt Solution company office building 15 EAW, WEGRACAL SE15 LiBr
absorption chiller
Austria Vienna Municipal building MA34 building 7.5 Sortech, ACS08 adsorption machine
French Maclas Lac/SIEL uptown 10 Suninverse sonnenklima LiBr
absorption chiller
French Perpignan SOLACLIM 7.5 Sortech ACS08 adsorption machine
Germany Berlin Radiological Practice 10 Suninverse sonnenklima LiBr
absorption chiller
Germany Freiburg Canteen, Fraunhofer Institute FHG-ISE 5.5 Sortech, Silica gel/water adsorption
machine
Germany Graching ZAE Bayern 10 Sonnenklima LiBr absorption chiller
Germany Moosburg Citrisolar Company building 5.5 Chilii STC6 gel/water adsorption
machine
Germany Rimsting SolarNext Company office building 15 Chili ESC15 LiBr absorption chiller
Italy Milan ISSA 4.5 Rotarcia Solar v45 LiBr absorption
chiller
Italy Milan Department of art, Politecnico Milan 7.5 Sortech, ACS08 adsorption machine
Austria Graz Solid Company building 17.5 Yazaki WFC-SC5 LiBr absorption
chiller
Austria Grobming Bachelor Training centre and office 10 Chilii PSC10 Ammonia absorption
building refrigerating machine
Denmark – AC-Sun Aps 10 AC-Sun company rankine cycle
refrigeration
Germany Miesbach Raiffeisen bank Miesbach 2 3 10 Chilii PSC10 Ammonia absorption
refrigerating machine
Germany Stuttgart ITW, Stuttgart university 10 Ammonia absorption refrigerating
machine

2. In the air-conditioning systems, PCM slurries
can be pumped directly as a secondary cooling
medium into the air handling units or stored
for load shifting. The high energy content of
the slurry provides the significant reductions in
the sizes of the pipes, pumps, and storage
tanks, including the air handling and chilling
costs compared with the conventional chilled
water systems.
3. Research into TES for both cooling and heat-
ing continues, which has also been considered
for waste heat recovery, energy generation,
building energy conservation, and air-condi-
tioning. Using PCM in the energy storage sys-
tems, heat exchangers and thermal control
systems are potential techniques. A novel com-
posite PCM has suitable thermal properties for
the TES applications in energy buildings and
condensation heat recovery. Applying forced
convection (pumping) would be beneficial to
the PCM cold storage system. The concept of
energy-saving building envelope, which is used
to guide the building envelope material selec-
tion and thermal performance, was designed.
4. A novel method, MEPCM, has been estab-
lished. The coco fatty acid mixture, as the core
material to prepare MEPCM, is a hot issue to
study in the PCM field. It is more effective
to be used in TES at low, especially in the
solar-driven air-conditioning systems. The key
question when analyzing PCM is charging/dis-
charging rate and thermal conductivity. The
inorganic high polymer as the shell material of
the MEPCM has drawn people’s attention. It
has potential essential applications in the areas
of heating, ventilation and air-conditioning,
refrigeration, and heat exchange.
5. For the absorption cycles, there exists a bal-
ance temperature in the regeneration for the
whole cycles, which mainly depend on the solar
collector and the machine size. The continuous
cooling cycle combined with heat storage sys-
tem has the highest COP compared with the
traditional cooling cycles. The cycle equipped
with heat pipes between the absorber and the
generator could increase the system COP.
6. The adsorption cycle system heat source tem-
perature requirement is lower than the similar
cycle, so it is more appropriate to the solar
energy. The compact adsorbent bed heat
exchanger could improve the system perfor-
mance. The optimization based on the COP
Zheng et al.
has a lower switching frequency than the cool-
ing capacity.
7. The ejector cycle system cooling capacity is rel-
evant with the area ratios and nozzle dia-
meters, and the system COP is linked to the
area ratios only. The spindle moves toward the
nozzle, as the primary spindle decreases. It
causes the decline in the system cooling capac-
ity. The heat pipe collector covered with the
double glass would offer the best efficiency.
8. The dehumidification cycle with the heat pump
has the best primary energy-saving effect. The
system improves the indoor comfort directly in
hot and humid climate conditions. The regen-
eration temperature from the indoor air is
returned from the solar collector outstanding
heating.
9. The combination of the energy generation and
storage will become the mainstream of the
solar energy industry development to increase
the durability and reliability of the renewable
energy. The current solar energy storage sys-
tem is not widely applied based on the com-
mercial analysis, where the main
considerations are the primary system cost, the
energy storage system capacity, and the whole
system size.
10. For future research, it was proposed that the
optimal design of solar-driven cooling system
was influenced on the indoor space by PCM
storage/release cooling dynamical control to
improve the building thermal environment.
The article could contribute in the exploration
of the PCM R&D and solar-powered air-con-
ditioning to improve the comfortable building
thermal environment.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: This project was funded by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (No. 51508352), Science &
Technology Department Foundation of Sichuan Province,
China (No. 2014GZ0052), and Science & Technology
Department Foundation of Chengdu City, China (No. 2015-
HM01-00244-SF).
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