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An Overview of the State of the Art and Challenges in the Use of Gelling and Thickening Agents to Create Stable Thermal Energy Storage Materials

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  • Rajendran Prabakaran

    (School of Mechanical Engineering, Yeungnam University, 280 Daehak-Ro, Gyeongsan 712-749, Republic of Korea)

  • Palanisamy Dhamodharan

    (School of Mechanical Engineering, Yeungnam University, 280 Daehak-Ro, Gyeongsan 712-749, Republic of Korea)

  • Anbalagan Sathishkumar

    (Department of Mechanical Engineering, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur 603203, India)

  • Paride Gullo

    (Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Alsion 2, 6400 Sønderborg, Denmark)

  • Muthuraman Ponrajan Vikram

    (Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Saveetha School of Engineering, SIMATS, Chennai 602105, India)

  • Saravanan Pandiaraj

    (Department of Basic Science and Self-Development Skills, CFY Deanship, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia)

  • Abdullah Alodhayb

    (Department of Physics and Astronomy, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia)

  • Ghada A. Khouqeer

    (Department of Physics, Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University (IMSIU), Riyadh 11564, Saudi Arabia)

  • Sung-Chul Kim

    (School of Mechanical Engineering, Yeungnam University, 280 Daehak-Ro, Gyeongsan 712-749, Republic of Korea)

Abstract

Building cooling and heating, solar-powered energy production, energy recovery, and other energy-consuming industries have all seen an increase in the use of cold/hot latent thermal energy storage (LH-TES). Through energy recovery, LH-TES that uses phase-change materials (PCMs) as a storage medium helps to close the energy supply and demand gap and raises the possibility of energy savings. However, the stability, thermal, physical, and chemical properties of the PCM play a major role in how effectively it can be used. In recent years, adding gelling and thickening agents (GTAs) has gained popularity apart from the nanoparticles (NPs) and nucleating triggers (NTs), particularly for the creation of stable PCMs. Therefore, the current work’s goal is to provide an overview of how GTAs are used in the process of developing reliable PCMs for TES applications. It has been found that using GTAs not only increased stability but also decreased sedimentation, leakage, and the supercooling degree (SCD). It was noted that the addition of a GTA with a weight percentage of 2–15% resulted in excellent stability with a negligible leakage rate and latent heat reduced by 3.6–35% after only 200 cycles. Furthermore, PCMs for solar-thermal and building heating systems in the medium-temperature range (21–61 °C) were mostly studied for their performance with GTAs, but no study for a cool TES application was reported. Most works have studied inorganic PCM components with GTAs, and a few reports are available for paraffin. However, the GTA blending resulted in reduced thermal performance due to a decrease in thermal conductivity, latent heat, and a rise in viscosity. Further, NTs and NPs with small amounts were seeded into the PCM-GTA for eradicating the SCD with enhanced TC and accelerated energy transfer.

Suggested Citation

  • Rajendran Prabakaran & Palanisamy Dhamodharan & Anbalagan Sathishkumar & Paride Gullo & Muthuraman Ponrajan Vikram & Saravanan Pandiaraj & Abdullah Alodhayb & Ghada A. Khouqeer & Sung-Chul Kim, 2023. "An Overview of the State of the Art and Challenges in the Use of Gelling and Thickening Agents to Create Stable Thermal Energy Storage Materials," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-24, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:8:p:3306-:d:1118167
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Thomas Coates & Law Torres Sevilla & Burhan Saeed & Jovana Radulovic, 2024. "Comparison of Single-Phase Mathematical Models for Solid-State Packed Beds for Thermal Energy Storage," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-12, April.

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