Experimental Investigation on Enhancement of Heat Transfer in Thermal Energy Storage System Using Paraffin Wax as PCM

An experimental study is conducted to investigate heat transfer enhancement in Thermal Energy Storage system (TES) with paraffin wax as a Phase Change Material (PCM). Therminol 66 is used as a heat transfer fluid (HTF) to carry the heat throughout circuit. The PCM is encapsulated in spherical shells which is stored in the storage tank. The work includes study of heat transfer rates between HTF and PCM with different encapsulation materials namely Copper, Aluminium and Brass. A series of experiments were conducted to investigate the time required and heat transfer rates of HTF during the processes of charging and discharging of the PCM. Experimentally, Copper was found to have the maximum heat transfer rate and Brass was found to have the least cost/kW of energy stored. In discharging process, the cumulative heat gained by HTF from the brass encapsulated PCM is higher (1419.8 kJ) than aluminium (1199.96 kJ) and copper (815.24 kJ). Thus it can be concluded the brass is the most economical encapsulating material for enhancing the heat transfer in a thermal storage system than copper. The heat transfer from the HTF to PCM occurs in copper are 4.9% faster when compared to Brass and 2.3% faster than Aluminum encapsulation. On the other hand, The cost per kW energy transfer from the different encapsulated materials proves that the brass is cost effective during both charging and discharging process.