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Phase Change Materials for Energy Saving in Buildings

Submission Deadline: 31 July 2023 (closed)

Guest Editors

Yushi Liu, Associate professor, School of Civil Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China.
Yushi Liu holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology as well as a bachelor's degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology. Dr. Liu has undertaken postdoctoral research at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, during which he is rewarded as an excellent young scholar by the Postdoctoral International Exchange Program of China. Dr. Liu has published more than 40 Top SCI-index papers in influential journals and held 10 National Invention Patents. Dr. Liu is being supported by more than 10 research fundings, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Key R&D Program of China, etc. Dr. Liu has received the Faculty Advisor Award for Excellent Dissertation and the Heilongjiang Science and Technology Progress Award of China, as well as the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award from Harbin Institute of Technology.

Junxia LI, Ph.D., Scientist, Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore.
Li Junxia is a Scientist at the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, A*STAR, Singapore. Prior to joining A*STAR, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. She obtained her Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Chongqing University, China, in 2006 and 2009, respectively, and received her Doctor of Philosophy from the Interdisciplinary Graduate School (IGS) of NTU, Singapore, in 2017. Dr. Li is an expert in sustainable and green construction materials, multifunctional construction materials, and probabilistic and stochastic modeling of construction materials. She has extensive experience and a strong publication record in the development of high-performance fiber reinforced cementitious composites with high strength and high ductility, focused on mixed design methods and modeling. Dr. Li was also an Adjunct Lecturer in Civil Engineering at University of Newcastle, Singapore.

Xijun Shi, P.E., Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at Texas State University (TXST), USA.
Xijun Shi, P.E., is an Assistant Professor of civil engineering at Texas State University (TXST), USA. He received a Ph.D. and an MS in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University. He graduated from the "Mao Yisheng" Honors Undergraduate Pavement Engineering Program at Southeast University in China. After his Ph.D. graduation, Shi worked as an Assistant Research Scientist/Postdoc at the Center for Infrastructure Renewal (CIR) of Texas A&M University and as a Postdoc at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI). Shi is passionate about advancing sustainable, multifunctional infrastructure assets. His primary research interests lie in the areas of infrastructure materials and pavement engineering. Since joining Texas State University in Fall 2020, Shi has already won an NSF research project, two NASA student projects, an ACI Foundation project, and four TXST internal research projects. At Texas A&M University, Shi participated in several research projects on materials and pavements funded by NSF, DOTs, FHWA, etc. Shi has more than 40 peer-reviewed publications and was the lead author of 19 of the papers published in prestigious journals. Shi serves in several professional organizations, including American Concrete Institute (ACI), Transportation Research Board (TRB), and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Notably, Shi is the main member of TRB AKP 20 Standing Committee on Design and Rehabilitation of Concrete Pavements and a voting member of ACI 555 committee Concrete with Recycled Materials. Shi is the co-chair of Concrete Pavements Committee of World Transport Convention (WTC). Shi also serves on the editorial board for several international journals. Shi is a recipient of 2021 USDA E. Kika De La Garza Fellowship and a member of ACI Class of 2022 Emerging Leaders Alliance.

Zhenming Li, Ph.D., Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands.
Zhenming Li received his BSc and MSc in Honors School and School of Civil Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology in 2013 and 2015, respectively. He received his Ph.D. from Delft University of Technology in 2021. In January of 2020, he started his Post-doc research in the same group. He received grants from Dutch Research Council (NWO) in his Ph.D. study and EU Horizon 2020 in his Post-doc study. In 2022, he obtained the grant from European Commission as a Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow with University of Sheffield as the main host. His research is focused on mechanical properties (e.g., setting, strength and elastic modulus), volume stability (e.g., chemical shrinkage, autogenous shrinkage, drying shrinkage, thermal shrinkage and creep) and durability (e.g., chloride penetration, carbonation and freeze & thaw) of sustainable building materials, e.g., alkali-activated materials, with the incorporation of industrial by-products and wastes. He is a reviewer and an Editorial Member for several journals. He is now the executive secretary of RILEM TC-294.

Summary

As various industries vigorously have been developing in the world, a huge of non-renewable resources and energy (e.g., petroleum, coal, natural gas, etc.) are rapidly consumed, seriously threatening the sustainability of our natural environment. It should be noted that building energy consumption accounts for nearly a third of the total global energy consumption, mainly including air conditioning and heating. Therefore, the considerable energy footprint from the thermal energy system requires innovations in design, materials and production to improve energy efficiency. Phase change materials (PCMs) can endow buildings with significant heat energy storage capacity when PCMs are acted as envelope structures or are integrated into building materials, rendering them desirable for thermal energy management. Currently, efficient use of PCMs can be regarded as one of the most promising approaches to realizing building energy saving. However, there are still challenges in terms of the development of high energy storage density PCM, the encapsulated techniques of PCMs, the preparation methods of thermal energy storage building materials, numerical simulation, multi-objective optimization model, energy efficiency evaluation and life-cycle assessment.


The purpose of this special issue is to promote excellent research concerning all aspects in the realm of PCMs in buildings for energy saving, focusing on recent advances, research gaps and new trends.

 

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

· Development of PCMs with high energy storage density;

· Design and preparation of form-stable PCMs with high strength;

· Heat energy capacity and heat-transfer characteristics;

· Thermal energy storage building materials incorporated with PCMs;

· Numerical simulation;

· Multi-objective optimization modeling;

· Temperature controlling and energy saving evaluation in buildings;

· Life cycle assessment and life cycle cost.


Keywords

Sustainability; Energy saving; Building materials; Phase change materials

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