Abstract
Edible oils could provide more accessible alternatives to other phase change materials (PCMs) for consumers who wish to build a thermal energy storage (TES) system with sustainable materials. Edible oils have good shelf life, can be acquired easily from local stores and can be less expensive than other PCMs. In this work, we explore whether margarine, vegetable shortening, and coconut oil are feasible PCMs, by investigations of their thermal properties and thermal stability. We found that margarine and vegetable shortening are not useful for TES due to their low latent heat of fusion, ΔfusH, and poor thermal stability. In contrast, coconut oil remained thermally stable after 200 melt-freeze cycles, and has a large ΔfusH of 105 ± 11 J g−1, a low degree of supercooling and a transition temperature, Tmpt = 24.5 ± 1.5 °C, that makes it very useful for TES in buildings. We also determined coconut oil’s heat capacity and thermal conductivity as functions of temperature and used the measured properties to evaluate the feasibility of coconut oil for thermal buffering and passive heating of a residential-scale greenhouse.
Highlights
Phase change materials (PCMs) provide high thermal energy storage density over a small temperature range, in comparison with sensible heat storage materials, such as water [1,2,3]
Behavior, their in this work, we focus on further characterization of refined coconut oil because its retail cost is about this work, we we focus focus on on further further characterization characterization of coconut oil because its retail cost cost is is about about this work, of refined refined coconut oil because its retail half that of virgin coconut oil
We investigated the possibility of using edible oils as PCMs for thermal energy storage in residential applications
Summary
Phase change materials (PCMs) provide high thermal energy storage density over a small temperature range, in comparison with sensible heat storage materials, such as water [1,2,3]. Systems operating near the ambient temperature range, i.e., 10–40 ◦ C. systems operating near the ambient temperature range, i.e., 10–40 ◦ C These PCMs are desirable for off-grid and renewable energy applications because the materials can be sustainable, non-toxic to the environment and abundant in nature [4,5,6,7,8,9]. They can be integrated into building materials and residential structures to mitigate excessive temperature fluctuations, storing heat as they change phases, e.g., from solid to liquid [10,11,12,13]. A life-cycle assessment study of dodecanoic acid (aka lauric acid, [CH3 (CH2 ) COOH]) has shown [17] that the embodied energy associated with its production from palm kernel oil can be recouped in a matter of months
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