Open Access

Energy consumption for cooling is growing dramatically. In the last years, electricity peak consumption grew significantly, switching from winter to summer in many EU countries. This is endangering the stability of electricity grids. This article outlines a comprehensive analysis of an office building performances in terms of energy consumption and thermal comfort (in accordance with static – ISO 7730:2005 – and adaptive thermal comfort criteria – EN 15251:2007 –) related to different cooling concepts in six different European climate zones. The work is based on a series of dynamic simulations carried out in the Trnsys 17 environment for a typical office building. The simulation study was accomplished for five cooling technologies: natural ventilation (NV), mechanical night ventilation (MV), fan-coils (FC), suspended ceiling panels (SCP), and concrete core conditioning (CCC) applied in Stockholm, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Milan, Rome, and Palermo. Under this premise, the authors propose a methodology for the evaluation of the cooling concepts taking into account both, thermal comfort and energy consumption.

A series of isostructural 3D coordination polymers (3)∞[M(tdc)(bpy)] (M(2+) = Zn(2+), Cd(2+), Co(2+), Fe(2+); tdc(2-) = 2,5-thiophenedicarboxylate; bpy = 4,4'-bipyridine) was synthesized and characterized by X-ray diffraction, thermal analysis, and gas adsorption measurements. The materials show high thermal stability up to approximately 400 °C and a solvent induced phase transition. Single crystal X-ray structure determination was successfully performed for all compounds after the phase transition. In the zinc-based coordination polymer, various amounts of a second type of metal ions such as Co(2+) or Fe(2+) could be incorporated. Furthermore, the catalytic behavior of the homo- and heteronuclear 3D coordination polymers in an oxidation model reaction was investigated.