Renewable Energy for PCM Based Thermal Energy Storage System by Using Nanoparticles

Abstract

Day by day the use of fossil fuels increase in greenhouse gas emissions and rise in fuel prices. These are the main driving forces behind efforts for the effective utilization of various types of renewable energy resources. Thermal energy storage is an effective method of storing thermal energy. The use of phases change materials in the solar system would improve the performance of the system due to its high energy storage density and isothermal operations. Nowadays for solar heating applications, phase change materials (PCM) are used to store the energy in the form of latent heat because the large quantity of thermal energy is stored in the small volume. In present work, nanofluids namely Al2O3 and CuO were used in 0.02%, 0.05%, and 0.08% volume concentration into the base fluid (water) and also different flow rates 2lit/min, 4lit/min and 6lit/min to enhance its thermal performance. An experimental set-up is designed, fabricated and commissioned to collect thermal performance data on the thermal energy storage tank. In these experiment spherical capsules is used with a circular fin which contains phase change materials (PCM) of stearic acid charging and discharging. Experiments were carried out with the base fluid to study the heat transfer rates.