Abstract
The development of thermal energy storage solutions (TES) in agroindustry allows reduction of production costs and improvement of operation sustainability. Such solutions require high storage capacity and the ability to adapt to existing equipment. The use of phase change materials (PCMs), which are able to store thermal energy as latent heat, creates new opportunities for heat storage solutions (LHS, latent heat storage) with higher energy density and improved performance when compared to sensible heat storage. New architectures are envisaged where heat storage is distributed throughout the production chain, creating prospects for the integration of renewable generation and recovery of industrial heat waste. This work aims to investigate the benefits of decentralized thermal storage architecture, directly incorporating PCM into the existing equipment of an agroindustry production line. To assess the feasibility and potential gain in the adoption of this TES/LHS distributed solution, a tempering and mixing equipment for food granules is selected as a case study, representing a larger cluster operating under the operation paradigm of water jacket heating. The behavior of the equipment, incorporating an inorganic PCM, is modeled and analyzed in the ANSYS Fluent software. Subsequently, a prototype is instrumented and used in laboratory tests, allowing for data collection and validation of the simulation model. This case study presents a demonstration of the increase in storage capacity and the extension of the discharge process when compared to a conventional solution that uses water for sensible heat storage.
Highlights
There is no widely adopted definition for Agroindustry, The United NationsIndustrial Development Organization provides one that suits several cases found in the literature, namely the “post-harvest activities involved in the transformation, preservation, and preparation of agricultural products for intermediate or final consumption” [1]
To develop the methodologies and tools that allow scaling up of the use of phase change materials (PCMs) as The equipment used in this work was a tempering and mixing machine to melt part of thermal energy storage solutions (TES) solutions for agroindustry, and applying them in the modeling of real case granules of chocolate mixed with milk
The ANSYS Fluent computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package was used for simulaThe ANSYS Fluent computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package was used for tions that evaluate the thermal energy storage performance of the equipment operating simulations that evaluate the thermal energy storage performance of the equipment either with water (SHS) or with PCMs (LHS), as well as the evolution of the main varioperating either with water (SHS) or with PCMs (LHS), as well as the evolution of the ables influencing the charge and the discharge processes
Summary
Industrial Development Organization provides one that suits several cases found in the literature, namely the “post-harvest activities involved in the transformation, preservation, and preparation of agricultural products for intermediate or final consumption” [1]. Agroindustry is related to commercializing and adding value to agricultural products, as well as 4.0/). AgriEngineering 2022, 4 to the links between enterprises and the supply chains for developing, transforming, and distributing those products [2]. Agroindustrial plants are not seen as intensive energy consumers, the scale of agroindustry makes it responsible for a major fraction of worldwide energy consumption [3]. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) from the United Nations, agriculture and agroindustry systems are characterized by a high dependence on energy, fossil fuels, accounting for around 30% of worldwide energy consumption and
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