Recent developments in phase change materials for energy storage applications: A review

Phase change materials (PCMs) are gaining increasing attention and becoming popular in the thermal energy storage field. Microcapsules enhance thermal and mechanical performance of PCMs used in thermal energy storage by increasing the heat transfer area and preventing the leakage of melting materials. Nowadays, a large number of studies about PCM microcapsules have been published to elaborate their benefits in energy systems. In this paper, a comprehensive review has been carried out on PCM microcapsules for thermal energy storage. Five aspects have been discussed in this review: classification of PCMs, encapsulation shell materials, microencapsulation techniques, PCM microcapsules’ characterizations, and thermal applications. This review aims to help the researchers from various fields better understand PCM microcapsules and provide critical guidance for utilizing this technology for future thermal energy storage.

/pdf/phase-change-material-pcm-microcapsules-for-thermal-energy-2amtez1509.pdf

Phase Change Material (PCM) Microcapsules for Thermal Energy Storage

A review of concentrated solar power hybrid technologies

Advanced power cycles for concentrated solar power

Thermal energy storage (TES) is increasingly important due to the demand-supply challenge caused by the intermittency of renewable energy and waste heat dissipation to the environment. This paper discusses the fundamentals and novel applications of TES materials and identifies appropriate TES materials for particular applications. The selection and ranking of suitable materials are discussed through multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques considering chemical, technical, economic and thermal performance. The recent advancements in TES materials, including their development, performance and applications are discussed in detail. Such materials show enhanced thermal conductivity, reduced supercooling, and the advantage of having multiple phase change temperatures (cascade PCMs). Nano-enhanced PCMs have found the thermal conductivity enhancement of up to 32% but the latent heat is also reduced by up to 32%. MXene is a recently developed 2D nanomaterial with enhanced electrochemical properties showing thermal conductivity and efficiency up to 16% and 94% respectively. Shape-stabilized PCMs are able to enhance the heat transfer rate several times (3–10 times) and are found to be best suited for solar collector and PV-based heat recovery systems. Cascade and molten slats PCMs find their best applications in the thermal management of buildings and the power sector (concentrated solar plants). Microencapsulated, nanoPCMs and shape-stabilized PCMs effectively reduce the supercooling of hydrated salts. The recent trends of TES materials in various applications, including building, industrial, power, food storage, smart textiles, thermal management, and desalination are also briefly discussed. Finally, future research in advanced energy storage materials is also addressed in this study, which is intended to help create new insights that will revolutionize the thermal management field. 

Advances in thermal energy storage: Fundamentals and applications

Opportunities and challenges in using particle circulation loops for concentrated solar power applications

Simulation of a hybrid solar gas-turbine cycle with storage integration

Experimentation of a High Temperature Thermal Energy Storage Prototype Using Phase Change Materials for the Thermal Protection of a Pressurized Air Solar Receiver

. .High-temperature energy conversion processes and the corresponding high surface temperatures of receivers increase thermal losses. This makes high-performance heliostats with increased optical and tracking quality interesting. Several improvement measures were investigated for the Stellio heliostat (Figure 1). Performance gains and cost effects were examined for each measure and for a combination of all measures. LCoE changes have been calculated to assess cost-effectiveness.

High-performance stellio heliostat for high temperature application

. The current benchmark for CSP is the molten salt tower. The next generation of CSP plant should keep the general architecture of the current benchmark – namely the molten salt tower with its direct storage – but should operate at higher temperatures in order to downsize its solar field through higher efficiency. Solid particles are the best candidate today to replace the molten salt as storage medium. Next-CSP is a project funded by the European Union’s H2020 program that aims at developing a new concept of particle solar receiver and validating it with a 1.2 MW e demonstration plant. The project also includes the study of a future utility-scale plant based on the concept in order to assess its technical and economic feasibility. This paper outlines the preliminary design of such a 150 MW e Next-CSP plant. Costs were considered to make design choices but are not dealt with in this paper. The plant is designed as a peaker that generates power during the evening. Due to inherent limitations of the concept, the solar receiver is a cavity one with a limited thermal output, which makes a multi-tower configuration mandatory. Our plant has six towers, each one with one receiver. Bucket elevators were chosen to lift the particles from ground level to the receivers. The layout of the whole solar island was optimized to minimize the cumulated length of the network that horizontally conveys the particles between the storage system and the six towers. The chosen layout, named “Vertical Star”, allows for a cumulated length of 4.0 km, which is still very challenging in terms of Capex and thermal losses. Whilst the bottoming steam cycle is standard, the gas turbine features a double reheat in order to achieve a combined cycle efficiency approaching 50%. The heat exchangers that provide the heat from the particles to the gas turbine are numerous (ten) and bulky. To conclude, the deployment of a utility-scale Next-CSP plant can realistically be envisioned; however, some technical challenges must be dealt with carefully, especially the thermal losses of the solar receiver and the particle conveying network.

Next-CSP concept with particle receiver applied to a 150 MWe solar tower

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