Carbonate salt based composite phase change materials for medium and high temperature thermal energy storage: From component to device level performance through modelling

Chuan Li, Qi Li and Yulong Ding

Renewable Energy, 2019, vol. 140, issue C, 140-151

Abstract: This paper concerns the thermal performance of composite phase change materials (CPCMs) based thermal energy storage (TES) from component to device levels. The CPCMs consist of a eutectic salt of NaLiCO3 as the phase change material (PCM), an MgO as the ceramic skeleton material (CSM) and graphite flakes as the thermal conductivity enhancement material (TCEM). A computational model describing the transient heat transfer within the CPCMs module and component is developed and validated by experiment. Extensive modelling is then performed to investigate the performance of TES from component to device levels. Firstly, the influences of CPCMs properties, module size and surface roughness on component performance are evaluated. The results show that a higher mass loading of TCEM gives a higher thermal conductivity at CPCMs module level and hence a shorter charging/discharging process at component level. A larger CPCMs module and a higher heat transfer fluid inlet velocity achieve a remarkable improvement on component performance. The CPCMs based device is then investigated with a focus on the effect of the component arrangements. The results indicate that the trapezoidal configuration offers the best performance with the total charging process being shortened by 55.6% and 34.8% in comparison with the parallel and interlaced configurations.

Keywords: Thermal energy storage; Composite phase change materials; Material properties; Carbonate salt; Medium and high temperature; Component and device performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148119303106
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:renene:v:140:y:2019:i:c:p:140-151

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2019.03.005

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

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