Review on thermal performances and applications of thermal energy storage systems with inorganic phase change materials

Yaxue Lin, Guruprasad Alva and Guiyin Fang

Energy, 2018, vol. 165, issue PA, 685-708

Abstract: For solving the global problems of environmental pollution and energy shortages, thermal energy storage system that can improve the efficiency and utilization ratio of energy and solve the gap between energy demand and supply, has received more attention in recent years. More specifically, the latent thermal storage systems that use phase change materials (PCMs) as storage media, possessing high latent heat storage density and almost constant phase change temperature are the focus area in thermal energy storage. Previously, most of the researches on PCMs were organic, however in recent years, inorganic PCMs with large phase change temperature range have been paid more and more attention. In common inorganic PCMs, hydrated salts possess lower phase change temperature, applying in buildings, solar water heating systems, textiles, etc., and molten salts and metals have higher phase change temperature, applying in concentrated solar power (CSP) generation and industrial waste heat recovery etc. Each has its own outstanding merits, for example, inorganic salts possess a large latent heat storage capacity and metals possess an extremely high thermal conductivity. Therefore, this review focuses on the researches of inorganic PCMs in recent years and summaries their thermal properties, and introduces the integration of inorganic PCMs into heat exchangers and some applications of inorganic PCMs in main systems, seeking to give readers a relatively comprehensive awareness on them.

Keywords: Thermal energy storage; Thermal energy storage system; Inorganic PCMs; Thermal performances; Thermal energy storage applications (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (65)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544218318929
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:165:y:2018:i:pa:p:685-708

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2018.09.128

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().