Latent heat storage with phase change materials (PCM) has the potential to improve significantly the efficiency of heat and cold storages and to reduce their size considerably. The book is an introduction into the field for researchers and students. It summarizes and explains the basics, general concepts, and applications with examples in a single text. For a better understanding, many derivations, graphs and tables are included. All aspects from materials analysis and modification, storage design, storage integration, and different application examples are covered. Special focus is on applications in buildings. The subject of the book is heat and cold storage with PCM (phase change material) . Currently there are plenty of publications in journals on different aspects of PCM technology, but there is no introduction into basics and applications available for a beginner or for somebody who works in one aspect of PCM technology and wants to get a general overview. The book is intended to fill this gap for researchers, graduate, and PhD students, mainly within science and engineering. The book summarizes and explains the most important basics and applications in a single text. The focus is on the explanation of general concepts and their discussion on selected examples. To go beyond an introduction, each chapter supplies many references with focus on such references that serve as an introduction into a special aspect, interesting websites, and other similar information. The book also contains many derivations of basic equations, examples, graphs and tables. To make reading easier, the appendix also includes a list of the most important definitions.
As an introduction, the chapters cover all aspects starting from basic theoretical background to materials analysis and modification, storage design, storage integration, and different application examples. Special focus is on applications in buildings, because this is where the potential to apply PCM is very high.

1;Acknowledgements;5 2;Preface;6 3;Contents;10 4;1 Basic thermodynamics of thermal energy storage;16 5;2 Solid-liquid phase change materials;26 6;3 Determination of physical and technical properties;71 7;4 Heat transfer basics;119 8;5 Design of latent heat storages;151 9;6 Integration of active storages into systems;194 10;7 Applications in transport and storage containers;203 11;8 Applications for the human body;216 12;9 Applications for heating and cooling in buildings;227 13;10 Appendix;306 14;11 Index;313