Experimental Investigation of Solar Paraffin Wax Melting Unit Integrated with Phase Change Heat Energy Storage by Using Phase Change Material

2015 ◽  
Vol 766-767 ◽  
pp. 451-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Saikrishnan ◽  
P.S. Jagadeesh ◽  
K.R. Jayasuriyaa

An Experimental study on phase change heat energy storage system (PCHES) using Erythritol as a phase change material (PCM) has been carried out. Simple and popularly used domestic solar thermal applications make use of direct radiation energy of the sun for cooking, liquid heating, drying and many others as it is the remarkable potential renewable energy source. Effective utilization of such energy can be made with the development of economically operating phase change heat energy storage (PCHES) which is elemental in spanning the gap between supply and demand of energy. PCHES that stores the latent heat of fusion of phase change materials is provocative because of its huge storage density. An integrated Solar wax melting unit with phase change thermal energy storage using ethylene glycol as heat transfer fluid(HTF) to transfer the heat from parabolic dish collector to the wax melting unit is investigated. In this experimental setup, the paraffin wax container is kept in an insulated heat retrieval unit. Heat stored during the daytime by the PCHES is utilized in the off sunshine hours.

Author(s):  
Dominic Groulx ◽  
Wilson Ogoh

One way of storing thermal energy is through the use of latent heat energy storage systems. One such system, composed of a cylindrical container filled with paraffin wax, through which a copper pipe carrying hot water is inserted, is presented in this paper. It is shown that the physical processes encountered in the flow of water, the heat transfer by conduction and convection, and the phase change behavior of the phase change material can be modeled numerically using the finite element method. Only charging (melting) is treated in this paper. The appearance and the behavior of the melting front can be simulated by modifying the specific heat of the PCM to account for the increased amount of energy, in the form of latent heat of fusion, needed to melt the PCM over its melting temperature range. The effects of adding fins to the system are also studied, as well as the effects of the water inlet velocity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 032-041
Author(s):  
Pradeep N ◽  
Somesh Subramanian S

Thermal energy storage through phase change material has been used for wide applications in the field of air conditioning and refrigeration. The specific use of this thermal storage has been for energy storage during low demand and release of this energy during peak loads with potential to provide energy savings due to this. The principle of latent heat storage using phase change materials (PCMs) can be incorporated into a thermal storage system suitable for using deep freezers. The evaporator is covered with another box which has storage capacity or passage through phase change material. The results revealed that the performance is increased from 3.2 to 3.5 by using PCM.


RSC Advances ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (74) ◽  
pp. 39552-39557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhonghao Rao ◽  
Xinyu You ◽  
Yutao Huo ◽  
Xinjian Liu

The nano-encapsulated phase change materials (PCM), which have several good thermophysical properties, were proposed as potential for thermal energy storage.


2018 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 01010
Author(s):  
Marta Kuta ◽  
Dominika Matuszewska ◽  
Tadeusz Michał Wójcik

Increasing energy consumption in residential and public buildings requires development of new technologies for thermal energy production and storage. One of possibilities for the second listed need is the use of phase change materials (PCMs). This work is focused on solutions in this area and consists of two parts. First one is focused on different designs of thermal energy storage (TES) tanks based on the phase change materials. The second part is the analysis of tests results for TES tank containing shelf and tube heat exchanger and filled with phase change material. Thermal energy storage tank is analyzed in order to use it in domestic heating and hot utility water installations. The aim of this research was to check the applicability of phase change material for mentioned purpose. Results show that using phase change materials for thermal energy storage can increase amount of stored heat. The use of properly selected PCM and heat exchanger enables the process of thermal energy storing and releasing to become more efficient.


RSC Advances ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (14) ◽  
pp. 8097-8103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenbin Wang ◽  
Huimin Cao ◽  
Jingyi Liu ◽  
Shifang Jia ◽  
Lin Ma ◽  
...  

Phase change energy storage wood (PCESW) was prepared by using microencapsulated phase change materials (MicroPCM) as thermal energy storage (TES) materials and wood as the matrix.


Author(s):  
Thomas R. Amundson ◽  
David B. Scharfe ◽  
Rebecca N. Webb

Latent heat energy storage is one of the most efficient ways to store solar thermal energy. A system capable of receiving, absorbing, and collecting solar energy and storing it within a high temperature phase change material has been designed as part of a power system to be used on a low Earth orbit satellite. The system employs silicon as the phase change material and thermophotovoltaic cells for the conversion of stored heat energy into electrical energy. The effect of a void, in the phase change material, on system temperature and the associated thermophotovoltaic power production is determined through computational evaluation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 ◽  
pp. 00038 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria K. Koukou ◽  
Michail Gr. Vrachopoulos ◽  
George Dogkas ◽  
Christos Pagkalos ◽  
Kostas Lymperis ◽  
...  

A prototype Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage (LHTES) unit has been designed, constructed, and experimentally analysed for its thermal storage performance under different operational conditions considering heating application and exploiting solar and geothermal energy. The system consists of a rectangular tank filled with Phase Change Material (PCM) and a finned tube staggered Heat Exchanger (HE) while water is used as Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF). Different HTF inlet temperatures and flow rates were tested to find out their effects on LHTES performance. Thermal quantities such as HTF outlet temperature, heat transfer rate, stored energy, were evaluated as a function of the conditions studied. Two commercial organic PCMs were tested A44 and A46. Results indicate that A44 is more efficient during the charging period, taking into account the two energy sources, solar and heat pump. During the discharging process, it exhibits higher storage capacity than A46. Concluding, the developed methodology can be applied to study different PCMs and building applications.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 1185-1192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hengxing Ji ◽  
Daniel P. Sellan ◽  
Michael T. Pettes ◽  
Xianghua Kong ◽  
Junyi Ji ◽  
...  

Embedding continuous ultrathin-graphite foams (UGFs) with volume fractions as low as 0.8–1.2 vol% in a phase change material (PCM) can increase the effective thermal conductivity by up to 18 times, with negligible change in the melting temperature or mass specific heat of fusion.


2018 ◽  
Vol 172 ◽  
pp. 02001
Author(s):  
R Sathiyaraj. ◽  
R Rakesh. ◽  
N Mithran. ◽  
M Venkatesan.

Phase change materials (PCMs) are energy storage materials which can be used for maintaining a controlled thermal environment for various applications in earth and space. PCMs are used in advanced technologies in aerospace cooling applications like heat exchangers and heat pipes for re-entry vehicles and spacecraft. Paraffin is a phase change material (PCM) commonly used for energy storage-related applications. Paraffin wax exhibits slow thermal response due to low thermal conductivity value (~0.2 W/m K for most paraffin waxes). In the present work, an attempt is made to fabricate a composite PCM using graphite powder. Such a composite material has enhanced thermal conductivity along with reduced melting period which are desirable properties of a PCM during solid to liquid phase change process. The reduction in melting period is indicated by the difference in change in temperature measured by the thermocouples during a specified time. The temperature variation and solid-liquid interface formation during the melting process are experimentally studied. The results showed that composite graphite powder with paraffin can improve the total phase transition time.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document