A critical review on heat transfer augmentation of phase change materials embedded with porous materials/foams

Latent heat storage (LHS) is considered as the most promising technique for thermal energy storage, due to its high energy storage density and nearly constant working temperature. However, the lower thermal conductivity of the phase change material (PCM) used in LHS system seriously weakens thermal energy charging and discharging rates. In order to improve the thermal performance of LHS system, a lot of research on performance enhancement have been carried out. This review paper will concern on the development of PCMs and performance enhancement methods for LHS system in the last decade. The available enhancement methods can be classified into three categories: using high thermal conductivity additives and porous media to enhance PCM thermal conductivity, using finned tubes and encapsulated PCMs to extend heat transfer surface, using multistage or cascaded LHS technique and thermodynamic optimization to improving the heat transfer uniformity. The comparative reviews on PCMs, corresponding performance enhancement methods and their characteristics are presented in present paper. That will help in selecting reliable PCMs and matching suitable performance enhancement method to achieve the best thermal performance for PCM based LHS system. In addition, the research gaps in performance enhancement techniques for LHS systems are also discussed and some recommendations for future research are proposed.

A review of phase change material and performance enhancement method for latent heat storage system

Latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES) uses phase change materials (PCMs) to store and release heat, and can effectively address the mismatch between energy supply and demand. However, it suffers from low thermal conductivity and the leakage problem. One of the solutions is integrating porous supports and PCMs to fabricate shape-stabilized phase change materials (ss-PCMs). The phase change heat transfer in porous ss-PCMs is of fundamental importance for determining thermal-fluidic behaviours and evaluating LHTES system performance. This paper reviews the recent experimental and numerical investigations on phase change heat transfer in porous ss-PCMs. Materials, methods, apparatuses and significant outcomes are included in the section of experimental studies and it is found that paraffin and metal foam are the most used PCM and porous support respectively in the current researches. Numerical advances are reviewed from the aspect of different simulation methods. Compared to representative elementary volume (REV)-scale simulation, the pore-scale simulation can provide extra flow and heat transfer characteristics in pores, exhibiting great potential for the simulation of mesoporous, microporous and hierarchical porous materials. Moreover, there exists a research gap between phase change heat transfer and material preparation. Finally, this review outlooks the future research topics of phase change heat transfer in porous ss-PCMs.

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A review of phase change heat transfer in shape-stabilized phase change materials (ss-PCMs) based on porous supports for thermal energy storage

Acceleration of discharge process of clean energy storage unit with insertion of porous foam considering nanoparticle enhanced paraffin

Yuanpeng Yao

Papers

Numerical modeling for solid–liquid phase change phenomena in porous media: Shell-and-tube type latent heat thermal energy storage

A new prediction model for the effective thermal conductivity of high porosity open-cell metal foams

Direct Simulation of Interstitial Heat Transfer Coefficient Between Paraffin and High Porosity Open-Cell Metal Foam

Pore-scale visualization and measurement of paraffin melting in high porosity open-cell copper foam

Thermal transport process of metal foam/paraffin composite (MFPC) with solid-liquid phase change: An experimental study