Full Spectrum Solar Thermal Energy Harvesting and Storage by a Molecular and Phase-Change Hybrid Material

Abstract

Summary Efficient solar thermal energy harvesting and storage are critical steps toward utilizing the abundant solar irradiation that reaches the surface of the earth. Current solar thermal approaches rely on costly high optical concentration systems, leading to high heat losses by hot bulk materials and surfaces. At the same time, the energy stored in the form of thermal energy has inherently large temporal losses. Here, we combine the physics of molecular energy and latent heat storage to introduce an integrated, simultaneous harvesting and storage hybrid paradigm for potential 24/7 energy delivery. The hybrid paradigm utilizes heat localization during the day to provide a harvesting efficiency of 73% at small scale and ∼90% at large scale. Remarkably, at night, the stored energy by the hybrid system is recovered with an efficiency of 80% and at a higher temperature than that of the day, in contrast to all of the state-of-the-art systems.