Energy recovery can benefit from phase change materials. A phase change material is a substance with a high heat of fusion, melting, and solidifying at a certain temperature, which is capable of storing and releasing large amounts of energy. The objective of this research is to enhance the efficiency of a system using modeling and experiments of corrugated plates as a recovery unit and salt as the PCM (Phase Change Material). The research focuses on understanding Thermal Energy Storage (TES) at melting temperature for heating. The heat storing, retrieving during a phase change process (melting or solidification) of a material is a promising technology to improve the efficiency of the thermal system. This study starts to design a unique energy recovery unit that has the capability to charge/discharge energy using fundamental of phase change material using low melting temperature materials. This research uses corrugated plates as an advanced material and channels of media will carry the thermal fluid (water) and channel in between will be occupied using PCM or in this case salt. The experiment measures the temperature in and out from the unit to estimate how much kWh (power) that unit can save in the molten salt. Also, monitoring the temperature inside the PCM using implanted thermocouples. The approach of this work is to collect temperature as a function of time to find how much energy units use to reach the charging point (fully melted) and reverse the flow to retrieve energy from the unit. After many weeks of designing, analysis, redesigning, and re-analyzing, we were finally able to come up with a unit suitable to store and recover energy. We were able to acquire all the necessary data to ensure that our system works. As we designed the system, we noticed that close attention had to be given to the positioning of the inlet and outlet ports. This is done in order to prevent any PCM from being lost from the back plate of the system. In addition, the cut out on the back plate needed to be properly dimensioned to prevent any water from leaking into the PCM. Most of the parts of the system were analyzed individually to ensure they could withstand the pressure and temperature from the hot water. Sealants and gaskets were able to withstand temperatures of up to 400°C. A follow-up of this project will be to design and analyze the system to fit into our homes and merge with HVAC systems. The results of this work can help to increase the energy sources since the energy demands are increasing.


Energy Recovery Unit Using Phase Change Materials

Division / Sponsors: 
Aerospace, Bioengineering, Applied Mechanics, Design Engineering Division, Advanced Energy Systems, Manufacturing Engineering Division, Noise Control and Acoustics, Nondestructive Evaluation, Diagnosis, and Prognosis (NDPD), Nuclear Engineering Division, Process Industries Division, Fluids Engineering, Heat Transfer, Materials, Microelectromechanical Systems, Safety Engineering and Risk Analysis, Computers & Information in Engineering


Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IMECE/IMECE2020/volume/84478

IMECE2020 - Virtual Conference

Supporting the need among researchers worldwide for additional online and multimedia content, ASME now offers the ASME Conference Video Collection. This platform will collect and provide long-term access to conference presentation videos, encompassing all technology areas within ASME's technical conference and events program. About 30,000-40,000 engineers across all mechanical engineering and related disciplines participate in ASME conferences each year. This includes authors of approximately 6,000 to 8,000 technical papers published by ASME, the majority of whom also submit video presentations for our virtual conferences. The video collection will be available as an add-on to existing product packages or as a separate subscription.