In the 24 Paragons of Filial Piety, an ancient Chinese children reader, a little boy Huang Xiang from Han Dynasty warmed his father’s sheets in winter by lying between them. If the same story happens today, he doesn’t have to go through all the trouble. Professor Niu Jianlei, Department of Building Services Engineering, invented a revolutionary latent heat storage system using a new thermal material known as Micro-Encapsulated Phase Change Material (MPCM) that keeps your house warm in winter and cool in summer for a much longer period of time. Not only can you save on heating or air conditioning bill this way, you can also save further by storing the heat or chilling the thermal material during off-peak hours with inexpensive electricity. In the peak hours when you need heating or air conditioning, just warm or chill your house with the preheated or pre-chilled thermal material. Under certain climatic condition, the new material even changes between solid and liquid states without a chiller. That means you can keep your house at an optimal temperature without using any electricity. Isn’t that great?
The system won the Gold Medal with the Congratulations of the Jury in the 38th International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva 2010.
