Energy storage is playing an increasingly important role in combating climate change. Compared to the extensive research interests in creating new electrochemical storage materials, less attention is paid to develop thermal energy storage materials. However, thermal energy, including heating and cooling, is the most crucial end-use in the residential sector, accounting for around 50-80% of the total energy consumption. Among that, cooling and refrigeration already consume 25–30% of the global electricity production, and this consumption is expected to surge 33-fold by 2100. Meanwhile, despite the massive amount of energy dedicated to producing cold energy, various cold sources are not efficiently utilized or even generally wasted. The fast-growing demand and production of cold energy, along with the newly trending concept of “cold economy,” triggered the urgent need to develop advanced cold thermal energy storage technologies to recover the waste cold energy, enhance the performance of refrigeration systems, and improve renewable energy integration.This study provides a systematic and comprehensive review of a wide range of existing and potential cold thermal energy storage materials, technologies, and applications at sub-zero temperatures (from around −270 °C to below 0 °C). In general, the vast potential of cold thermal energy storage is far from being fully deployed. By identifying the research gaps where further efforts are needed, the review outlines the potential development directions of the next generation cold thermal energy storage technologies. Moreover, this study also outlines the selection criteria for suitable materials and storage types for each application.For cold thermal energy storage technology materials, the amount of existing or potential phase change materials are more than sensible materials. However, fewer phase change materials are available below -50°C, and their latent heat drops dramatically as the phase change temperature decreases, making them not significantly more attractive than sensible materials.The most proposed or used storage types for sub-zero cold thermal energy storage are pack-bed, thermocline, shell-and-tube, plate-shaped, and slurry-based. Although some storage units are commercially deployed, more numerical and experimental studies should be carried out to enhance the performance of these storage units, especially improving the thermo-mechanical design and enhancing the heat transfer.Although some cold thermal energy storage systems have been proposed or installed in refrigeration systems (both active and passive), electricity storage systems (liquid air energy storage, pumped thermal energy storage, superconducting flywheel energy storage), and waste cold energy recovery systems (regasification process of liquified natural gas and hydrogen), its potential is not fully unveiled. Improvements of better using cold thermal energy storage in such applications, as well as research efforts to explore more applications, are needed.

State of the Art and Research Directions for Cold Thermal Energy Storage (Ctes) at Sub-Zero Temperatures

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/POWER/POWER2021/volume/85109

ASME 2021 Power Conference (POWER2021)

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