Performance analysis on a wood-color thermal catalytic Trombe wall in wood buildings

The wood buildings had huge advantages such as high thermal insulation performance and carbon fixation. While the indoor air pollution caused by the release from volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the artificial boards in wood buildings creates huge threat on human health. Considering architectural aesthetics and solar building-integration principles, this article proposed a novel thermal catalytic Trombe wall with wood-color thermal catalysts that realized heating and air purification. Firstly, the color difference between thermal catalysts and wood board was analyzed. Secondly, the heat and mass transfer model of the wood building with Trombe wall was developed and verified. Thirdly, the thermal and purification performance under different occupancy ratios of Trombe wall to whole wall (RT) and wood species were discussed. The main results were: (1) The color difference between thermal catalysts and wood was 0.97, which was similar and acceptable to meet architectural aesthetics; (2) Compared to ordinary wood building, the indoor temperature increased by 18 ℃ when combined with Trombe wall. The average thermal efficiency, purification efficiency and generated clean air were 26.91 %, 94.34 % and 385.58 m3, respectively. (3) With the increase of RT, the formaldehyde degradation performance and indoor air temperature increased from 73.52 % to 94.34 %, 25 to 38 ℃, respectively. (4) When considering natural running in daytime and forced running in nighttime, more than 90 % of indoor formaldehyde was degraded for five wood boards with different formaldehyde emission rates. The indoor formaldehyde concentration would be below 80 ppb for the release rate of 0.98 and 1.40 mg/L.