Bifunctional biomorphic SiC ceramics embedded molten salts for ultrafast thermal and solar energy storage

X Liu,Q Xu,Q Luo,M Chen,Y Song,Y Ding,Y Xuan,H Wang,Y Li

doi:10.1016/j.mtener.2021.100764

X Liu, Q Xu + Show 7 more

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtener.2021.100764

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Abstract

Phase change materials (PCMs) are regarded as one of the most promising candidates for thermal energy storage due to possessing large energy storage densities and maintaining nearly a constant temperature during charging/discharging processes. However, the intrinsically low thermal conductivity of PCMs has become a bottleneck for rapid energy transport and storage. Here, we present a strategy to achieve ultrafast solar and thermal energy storage based on biomorphic SiC skeletons embedded NaCl–KCl molten salts. A record-high thermal conductivity of 116 W/mK is achieved by replicating cellular structure of oak wood, leading to an ultrafast thermal energy storage rate compared with molten salts alone. By further decorating TiN nanoparticles on SiC skeletons, the solar absorptance is enhanced to be as high as 95.63% via exciting broadband plasmonic resonances. Excellent thermal transport and solar absorption properties enable designed composites to have bifunctional capabilities of harvesting both thermal energy and solar energy very rapidly. This work opens a new route for the design of bifunctional energy storage materials for ultrafast solar and thermal energy storage.

Highlights

Thermal energy storage can bridge the gap between thermal energy supply and consumption, playing a vital role in improving overall efficiency and reliability of thermal energy harvesting and utilization systems 1-4
Six types of wood are selected as the precursor, the scanning electron microscope of carbon templates obtained after pyrolysis are shown in Fig. 3a-f, the view is perpendicular to the direction of growth
We successfully achieved ultrafast both solar and thermal energy storage based on biomorphic SiC skeletons embedded NaCl-KCl molten salts

Summary

Introduction

Thermal energy storage can bridge the gap between thermal energy supply and consumption, playing a vital role in improving overall efficiency and reliability of thermal energy harvesting and utilization systems 1-4. Among various thermal energy storage materials, phase change materials (PCMs) have been regarded as promising candidates since large amount of heat can be stored or released during phase change processes[5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. Besides large energy storage densities, nearly a constant temperature is maintained during thermal energy charging/discharging processes, making output thermal energy have very small temperature variations. Effective to some extent 20, 32, 38-40, the improvement of thermal conductivity remains limited, so that there is still a long way to realized fast thermal energy transport and storage

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