Phase change energy storage and thermal storage

Are phase change materials suitable for thermal energy storage?

Phase change materials (PCMs) having a large latent heat during solid-liquid phase transition are promising for thermal energy storage applications. However, the relatively low thermal conductivity of the majority of promising PCMs (<10 W/ (m ⋅ K)) limits the power density and overall storage efficiency.

Why are phase change materials difficult to design?

Phase change materials (PCMs), which are commonly used in thermal energy storage applications, are difficult to design because they require excellent energy density and thermal transport, both of which are difficult to predict from simple physics-based models.

Can phase change materials enhance hot-spot thermal management?

Hot-spot thermal management by phase change materials enhanced by spatially graded metal meshes. Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. , 119153. 59. Moon, H., Miljkovic, N., and King, W.P. (2020). High power density thermal energy storage using additively manufactured heat exchangers and phase change material.

Why do phase-change materials lose heat?

Phase-change materials offer state-of-the-art thermal storage due to high latent heat. However, spontaneous heat loss from thermally charged phase-change materials to cooler surroundings occurs due to the absence of a significant energy barrier for the liquid–solid transition.

What causes spontaneous heat loss from phase-change materials to cooler surroundings?

However, spontaneous heat loss from thermally charged phase-change materials to cooler surroundings occurs due to the absence of a significant energy barrier for the liquid–solid transition. This prevents control over the thermal storage, and developing effective methods to address this problem has remained an elusive goal.

Do thermal storage materials have a trade-off between energy and power?

Researchers have developed figures of merit 12, 25, 26 to try to quantify the trade-off between the energy and power capabilities for thermal storage materials, and these figures of merit have been used to construct approximations of thermal Ragone plots 27.