EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE USE OF ORGANIC AND INORGANIC MATERIALS MELTED WITH INFRARED RAYS FOR THERMAL ENERGY STORAGE
Abstract
In order to ensure energy sustainability, energy storage processes need to be investigated and developed. The original value of this study is the experimental and numerical investigation of the performance of infrared radiation and PCM on an innovative heat storage system. In a laboratory environment, the rays obtained from an infrared lamp are transferred by a conical concentrator to an organic as paraffin and Hitec salts as inorganic were melted and their use in thermal energy storage is investigated. In the case of heat storage, while the focal temperature was between (200-300) °C in the charging state, the highest temperatures of the upper region of the furnace of about 10 liters were measured as 87 °C and 240 °C for paraffin and Hitec, respectively, at the end of 4 hours. At the end of 4 hours in the discharge state, the upper region temperature of the Hitec salt in the furnace decreased from approximately 102 °C to 46 °C, while the paraffin decreased from 75 °C to 55 °C. When the mass flow rates for paraffin and Hitec are 0.047 and 0.061 g s-1, respectively, the first law of Thermodynamics efficiencies are calculated as 10% and 24.6%, respectively. As a result, it is observed that paraffin has a high heat storage capability in low temperature applications up to a limited temperature (80°C). Additionally, for thermal energy storage at medium and high temperatures, Hitec salt which has a low melting point and high specific heat capacity, can be used.
Keywords
Infrared rays, Paraffin, Hitec salt, Thermal storage
The article was financially supported by the TÜBİTAK BİDEB and YÖK 100/2000 Doctoral project.