scholarly journals Paraffin Wax [As a Phase Changing Material (PCM)] Based Composites Containing Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes for Thermal Energy Storage (TES) Development

Crystals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 951
Author(s):  
Norah Hamad Almousa ◽  
Maha R. Alotaibi ◽  
Mohammad Alsohybani ◽  
Dominik Radziszewski ◽  
Saeed M. AlNoman ◽  
...  

Thermal energy storage (TES) technologies are considered as enabling and supporting technologies for more sustainable and reliable energy generation methods such as solar thermal and concentrated solar power. A thorough investigation of the TES system using paraffin wax (PW) as a phase changing material (PCM) should be considered. One of the possible approaches for improving the overall performance of the TES system is to enhance the thermal properties of the energy storage materials of PW. The current study investigated some of the properties of PW doped with nano-additives, namely, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNs), forming a nanocomposite PCM. The paraffin/MWCNT composite PCMs were tailor-made for enhanced and efficient TES applications. The thermal storage efficiency of the current TES bed system was approximately 71%, which is significant. Scanning electron spectroscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) characterization showed the physical incorporation of MWCNTs with PW, which was achieved by strong interfaces without microcracks. In addition, the FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) and TGA (thermogravimetric analysis) experimental results of this composite PCM showed good chemical compatibility and thermal stability. This was elucidated based on the observed similar thermal mass loss profiles as well as the identical chemical bond peaks for all of the tested samples (PW, CNT, and PW/CNT composites).

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karolina Matuszek ◽  
R. Vijayaraghavan ◽  
Craig Forsyth ◽  
Surianarayanan Mahadevan ◽  
Mega Kar ◽  
...  

Renewable energy has the ultimate capacity to resolve the environmental and scarcity challenges of the world’s energy supplies. However, both the utility of these sources and the economics of their implementation are strongly limited by their intermittent nature; inexpensive means of energy storage therefore needs to be part of the design. Distributed thermal energy storage is surprisingly underdeveloped in this context, in part due to the lack of advanced storage materials. Here, we describe a novel family of thermal energy storage materials based on pyrazolium cation, that operate in the 100-220°C temperature range, offering safe, inexpensive capacity, opening new pathways for high efficiency collection and storage of both solar-thermal energy, as well as excess wind power. We probe the molecular origins of the high thermal energy storage capacity of these ionic materials and demonstrate extended cycling that provides a basis for further scale up and development.


2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Iñigo Ortega-Fernández ◽  
Javier Rodríguez-Aseguinolaza ◽  
Antoni Gil ◽  
Abdessamad Faik ◽  
Bruno D’Aguanno

Slag is one of the main waste materials of the iron and steel manufacturing. Every year about 20 × 106 tons of slag are generated in the U.S. and 43.5 × 106 tons in Europe. The valorization of this by-product as heat storage material in thermal energy storage (TES) systems has numerous advantages which include the possibility to extend the working temperature range up to 1000 °C, the reduction of the system cost, and at the same time, the decrease of the quantity of waste in the iron and steel industry. In this paper, two different electric arc furnace (EAF) slags from two companies located in the Basque Country (Spain) are studied. Their thermal stability and compatibility in direct contact with the most common heat transfer fluids (HTFs) used in the concentrated solar power (CSP) plants are analyzed. The experiments have been designed in order to cover a wide range of temperature up to the maximum operation temperature of 1000 °C corresponding to the future generation of CSP plants. In particular, three different fluids have been studied: synthetic oil (Syltherm 800®) at 400 °C, molten salt (Solar Salt) at 500 °C, and air at 1000 °C. In addition, a complete characterization of the studied slags and fluids used in the experiments is presented showing the behavior of these materials after 500 hr laboratory-tests.


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