13 - Phase change materials in chemical and process engineering

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with phase change materials in chemical and process engineering. Industrial waste heat recovery is explored as a source of heating and cooling with the application of phase change materials, which is well known. Consequently, heat transformation technologies are presented in detail along with their technical and economic potentials. Initially, utilization of phase change materials in process industries is discussed, which covers on-site and off-site industrial applications. The concept of on-site and off-site thermal energy utilization is well defined. The large amount of industrial waste heat is generated, which can be stored in the phase change materials, and it can be transported to the place where there is energy requirement in particular. Industries such as metal manufacturing, nonmetal manufacturing, chemicals and chemical products, pulp, and food processing industries are the main focuses of the present study. All the technical aspects are discussed in detail with respect to the future scope of phase change materials with thermal energy storage systems. Thermal energy utilization using phase change materials for chemical process industries also has great potentiality for various applications such as thermal fluid heating systems, gas-fired systems, and solar heating systems, which are also discussed. A comprehensive study has been carried out for potential usage of phase change materials for various manufacturing and process engineering applications.