Recent Development in Phase Change Materials for Thermal Energy Storage
2012 (English)In: BIT's 1st Annual World Congress of Advanced Materials 2012: Innovation, Cutting-Edge and Smartness / [ed] International Research Center of International Talent, Beijing China, 2012, p. 299-300Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
Phase change materials (PCMs) have in the past years been in the center of research focus as an energy saving alternative. They have large potential for use in applications where intermittent energy sources are present and where shift of energy supply from user demand in time and in space is required. Examples are solar heating, night time ambient air cooling, and waste heat utilization amongst others. The materials store and release heat through change of phase from solid to liquid in endothermic process and from liquid to solid in exothermic process.
There are currently two major axes of PCM development driven application-wise. In passive thermal energy storage (TES) systems where the predominant role of PCMs is to serve as insulating material, thermal properties of the PCMs are tailored towards low thermal conductivity so as to limit heat transfer rate. In active TES, however, the research interest has been put in ameliorating the overall thermal power output. Various methods are dispersion of highly conductive particles, impregnation of PCM in graphite matrices, and novel design of heat exchanger apparatus.
The second research axe lies in improvement of material compatibility with the considered applications. Inorganic PCMs are characterized with subcooling effect, this means start of heat release well below the phase change temperature. While this can be used in the advantage for long term seasonal heat storage, in active cold storage systems where the working temperature range is relatively small, subcooling is to be limited in order to provide efficient thermal charge and discharge cycle. Furthermore, efforts have been put in limiting phase separation; this has a predominant role in assuring the energy storage stability for repeated charge/discharge cycles.
This presentation will provide insights to the recent material development in the field of thermal energy storage.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Beijing China, 2012. p. 299-300
Keywords [en]
PCM, TES, Subcooling, Phase Separation, Hysterisis
National Category
Composite Science and Engineering Materials Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-96771OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-96771DiVA, id: diva2:532602
Conference
World Congress of Advanced Materials 2012
Projects
Cold Thermal Energy Storage
Funder
StandUp
Note
QC 20121218. Author was also the chair of the session.
2012-06-112012-06-112022-06-24Bibliographically approved