Cyclic behaviors of a novel design of a metal hydride reactor encircled by cascaded phase change materials

Abstract

The integration of a phase change material (PCM) with a metal hydride (MH) reactor has received considerable attention recently. In such a system, the exothermic and endothermic processes of the MH reactor can be utilized effectively by enhancing the thermal exchange between the MH reactor and the PCM bed. In this study, a novel design that integrates the MH reactor with cascaded PCM beds is proposed. Magnesium nickel (Mg2Ni) alloy is used as the hydride reactor. Two different types of PCMs with different melting temperatures and enthalpies are arranged in series. A parametric study is carried out to identify the optimum distribution of the different PCMs. The results indicate that the proposed cascaded MH-PCM sandwich design improves the heat transfer rate which consequently shortens the time duration of the hydrogenation and dehydrogenation processes by 26% and 51%, respectively, compared to an MH-PCM sandwich design that includes only a single PCM.