THERMAL ENERGY STORAGE WITH PHASE CHANGE MATERIAL

INTRODUCTION
Scientists

all over the world are in search of new and renewable energy sources to reduce the CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels, particularly in areas where low temperature applications are involved.
Solar

energy has an enormous potential for the heating and cooling of buildings, producing hot water for domestic and industrial purposes, cooking, warming greenhouses for agricultural crops, etc.
Intermittent

energy source, unpredictable, and available only during the day.

The total energy we receive each year from the sun is around 35,000 times the total energy used by man. However, about 1/3 of this energy is either absorbed by the outer atmosphere or reflected back into the space. Solar thermal energy can be stored as: 1.Sensible heat (water and rock), 2.Latent heat (water/ice and salt hydrates), and 3.Heat of reaction, or combination of these. One major drawback of sensible heat storage is the large volume required, especially when the allowable temperature swing is small. Latent heat storage is more attractive than sensible heat storage because of its high storage density with smaller temperature swing

Latent heat storage has main advantage:

(i) it is possible to store large amounts of heat with only small temperature changes and therefore to have a high storage density

Their use often results in such significant benefits as: Reduce energy costs, Reduces energy consumption, Increased flexibility of operation, Reduces initial and maintenance costs, Reduces equipment size, More efficient and effective utilization of equipment, Conservation of fossil fuels (by facilitating more efficient energy use and/or fuel substitution), and

Reduces pollutant emissions (e.g. CO2 and CFCs).

TES deals with the storing of energy by heating, cooling, melting, solidifying or vaporizing a material, the thermal energy becoming available when the process is reversed.
Thermal energy storage (TES) systems have an enormous potential to make the use of thermal energy equipment more effective and for facilitating large-scale energy substitutions from an economic perspective.

PHASE CHANGE MATERIAL

A phase change material (PCM) is a substance with a high heat of fusion which , melting and solidifying at a certain temperature, is capable of storing and releasing large amounts of energy. Heat is absorbed or released when the material changes from solid to liquid and vice versa; thus, PCMs are classified as latent heat storage (LHS) units.

PCMs are classified into three types

ORGANIC PCMS

Paraffin (CnH2n+2) and Fatty acids CH3(CH2)2nCOOH).

Advantages: 1. Availability in a large temperature range 2. Freeze without much super cooling 3. Ability to melt congruently 4. Self nucleating properties 5. Compatibility with conventional material of construction 6. No segregation 7. Chemically stable 8. High heat of fusion 9. Safe and non-reactive 10. Recyclable

Disadvantages:
1. Low thermal conductivity in their solid state. High heat transfer rates are during the freezing cycle 2. Volumetric latent heat storage capacity is low 3. Flammable. This can be easily alleviated by a proper container 4. Due to cost consideration only technical grade paraffins may be used which are essentially paraffin mixture and are completely refined of oil

INORGANIC

Salt hydrates (MnH2O)

Advantages: 1. High volumetric latent heat storage capacity 2. Low cost and easy availability 3. Sharp melting point 4. High thermal conductivity 5. High heat of fusion 6. Non-flammable

Disadvantages: 1. Change of volume is very high 2. Super cooling is major problem in solid-liquid transition 3. Nucleating agents are needed.

Advantages: 1. Eutectics have sharp melting point similar to pure substance 2. Volumetric storage density is slightly above organic compounds Disadvantages: 1. Only limited data is available on thermo-physical properties as the use of these materials are very new to thermal storage application

CHEMICAL PROPERTIES
(i) Chemical stability. (ii) Complete reversible freeze / melt cycle. (iii) No degradation after a large number of freeze/ melt cycles. (iv) Non-corrosiveness to the construction materials. (v) Non-toxic, non-flammable, and non-explosive materials for safety.

Experimental setup
The set up consists of a solar collector and a thermal energy storage unit, a water tank and a pump as shown in Fig. The collector is well insulated and collects the solar energy and transfer heat energy to water. This hot water passes to the thermal energy storage unit where hot water passes though a coil and heat transfers from copper coil to the storage media HTF loses heat energy and is stored in the storage unit during charging (day time). During night time or early mornings cold water is passed through storage unit to recover the stored energy.

Mathematical Modeling A Mathematical model has been developed for the storage unit using water as sensible heat storage material is shown fig. In storage unit, storage material fills the annular shell space with mass m and heat capacity Cp around the coil, while the heat transfer fluid flows within the coil and exchanges heat with the Water

Energy Equation for Water as sensible heat storage material Consider storage tank is filled with water initially. The water in the storage tank gets heated up by circulating HTF which circulates continuously between solar collector, storage unit and water tank. HTF collects heat from solar collector and dissipates it to storage unit by which the temperature of water in the storage unit raises and energy will be stored in the form of sensible heat. The energy balance equation for liquid storage tank charging and discharging simultaneously is given by

[(VCp)l + (VCp)t] dTl/dt = qu - qload - (UA)t (Tl -Ta)

PRO- E DESIGN OF STORAGE TANK:

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