Experimental and Numerical Studies of Thermal Energy Storage using Paraffin Wax Phase Change Materials

The main idea of this work is to design and analyze efficient storage of thermal energy using phase change material. Solar energy is a readily available and renewable source of energy. It is also a clean energy as it does not emit carbon dioxide. However maximum utilization of solar energy is not possible without the use of thermal energy storage (TES). This thermal storage system can form an integral part of solar heating system. In this work a TES tank is designed and fabricated. Paraffin wax is the phase change material used. It is encased in stainless steel balls. The high specific heat capacity of PCM is used to store latent heat which can be used any time. Temperature measurements are taken using T-type thermocouple along with indicator. Numerical analysis is done using the CFD software Ansys Fluent. This work mainly focuses to find the solution for the mismatch of abundant solar energy available during daytime and non-availability of energy during night-time. This project work also forms a part of a wider study to explore the possibility of PCMs to store the energy during off-peak load and releases the same during peak load. In several countries, during the daytime the load will be at peak level which leads to high cost for production. Therefore, cost saving can be achieved if heat pumps can be operated during the off-peak periods to store heat for use during the peak periods.