Benchmarking of useful phase change materials for a building application

•PCM selection was defined by the requirements of the radiant wall application.•A thermo-physical characterization was carried out of PCM available in the market.•Cycling stability was studied as key aspect to ensure PCM lifetime in buildings.•Final selection was MC DS5038X due to its good stability and thermal properties. Nowadays, there is an increasing interest in more efficient building materials and new technologies to accomplish the objectives defined by energy policies. The combination of energy efficient building designs and integration of renewable energies makes the use of thermal energy storage (TES) necessary. Within this context, the improvement of building envelopes by the use of phase change materials (PCM) has been widely studied. The PCM selection should fulfil the requirements of the specific application. In this study, a benchmarking of PCM available in the market was performed to undertake a material selection for a specific building application. The incorporation of PCM into a radiant wall technology present several requirements with especial interest on long-term thermal stability. A complete laboratory-scale characterization has been carried out considering the following properties: temperature of phase change, specific heat capacity, thermal conductivity, and stability.