The Running Modes and Building Application Performance on a Solar-Based Thermal Catalytic Purification Battery for 24-H Heating and Air Purification

Abstract

The excessive reliance on air conditioning for comfortable indoor environment, leads to considerable energy consumption and sick building syndrome. A promising solution to simultaneously tackle these challenges involves harnessing solar thermal energy during the day to facilitate the all-day heating and removal of indoor pollutants. Here, a proof-of-concept solar-based thermal catalytic purification battery (TCPB) module, integrating multi-layer-design phase changing materials (PCM) and room-temperature thermal catalysts (RTTC), was reported for the first time. Considering the different application scenarios of buildings, we integrated the TCPB module and Trombe wall and explored two operation models of TCPB-T-wall: Model-1 (daytime charge/discharge and nighttime discharge) and Model-2 (daytime charge and nighttime discharge). Under Model-1, the clean air storage capacity per unit area during the day was 9.53m³/m², while the nighttime release capacity was 63.35m³/m². In contrast, TCPB-T-Wall under Model-2 exhibited a daytime clean air storage capacity of 150.41m³/m² and a nighttime release capacity of 86.50m³/m². In various Chinese cities, the TCPB prototype exhibited significant application potential, its purification enhancement coefficient was 0.89 to 1.70 compared with the thermal catalysts prototype. Meanwhile, Model-2 further enhanced the TCPB prototype's application potential in poor weather conditions, increasing the total clean air volume by at least 6.6%.

Keywords: Thermal catalytic purification battery, Charge and discharge, Phase changing materials, Room-temperature thermal catalyst, Indoor air purification.