Abstract
Technological development in latent heat storage (LHS) systems is essential for energy security and energy management for both renewable and non-renewable sources. In this article, numerical analyses on a shell-and-tube-based LHS system with coupled thermal enhancement through extended fins and nano-additives are conducted to propose optimal combinations for guaranteed higher discharging rate, enthalpy capacity and thermal distribution. Transient numerical simulations of fourteen scenarios with varied combinations are investigated in three-dimensional computational models. The shell-and-tube includes paraffin as phase change material (PCM), longitudinal, radial and wire-wound fins and graphene nano-platelets (GNP) as extended fins and nano-additives, respectively. The extended fins have demonstrated better effectiveness than nano-additives. For instance, the discharging durations for paraffin with longitudinal, radial and wire-wound fins are shortened by 88.76%, 95.13% and 96.44% as compared to 39.33% for paraffin with 2.5% GNP. The combined strengths of extended fins and nano-additives have indicated further enhancement in neutralising the insulative resistance and stratification of paraffin. However, the increase in volume fraction from 1% to 3% and 5% is rather detrimental to the total enthalpy capacity. Hence, the novel designed wire-wound fins with both base paraffin and paraffin with 1% GNP are proposed as optimal candidates owing to their significantly higher heat transfer potentials. The proposed novel designed configuration can retrieve 11.15 MJ of thermal enthalpy in 1.08 h as compared to 44.5 h for paraffin in a conventional shell-and-tube without fins. In addition, the proposed novel designed LHS systems have prolonged service life with zero maintenance and flexible scalability to meet both medium and large-scale energy storage demands.
Highlights
The rapidly depleting non-renewable sources and the associated ecological and environmental threats have prompted to bring about advancement in energy management and to switch reliance onto renewable sources to ensure long-term energy security
The large-scale employment of latent heat storage (LHS) systems and their projected penetration into the global energy mix are hindered by the insulative nature of phase change materials (PCM), which are utilised as energy storage medium
It was reported that perforated radial fins promoted natural convection and the thermal performance was improved by 7%
Summary
The rapidly depleting non-renewable sources and the associated ecological and environmental threats have prompted to bring about advancement in energy management and to switch reliance onto renewable sources to ensure long-term energy security. Energy storage systems are essential in promoting an increased penetration of renewable energy in the global energy mix [4]. Thermal energy storage (TES) systems have noticed an increased attention from scientists and engineers as a potential candidate to contribute to sustainable global energy demands. Latent heat storage (LHS) systems with a broad range of materials in sub-zero and low-medium-high temperature ranges along with higher energy storage capacity and easier integration into industrial, commercial and domestic setups have been regarded as a promising technological solution [5,6,7]. The large-scale employment of LHS systems and their projected penetration into the global energy mix are hindered by the insulative nature of phase change materials (PCM), which are utilised as energy storage medium. To counter the insulative nature, several methods have been investigated, such as the geometrical configuration of the heat exchanger, addition of extended fins, nano-additives, metal-matrix, micro- and macro-encapsulation [7,8,9]
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