Development of a latent heat thermal energy storage unit for the exhaust of a recuperated solar-dish Brayton cycle

G. Humbert; C. Roosendaal; J.K. Swanepoel; H.M. Navarro; W.G. Le Roux; A. Sciacovelli

doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2022.118994

Development of a latent heat thermal energy storage unit for the exhaust of a recuperated solar-dish Brayton cycle

G. Humbert, C. Roosendaal, J.K. Swanepoel, H.M. Navarro, W.G. Le Roux, A. Sciacovelli

Chemical Engineering

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Abstract

Solar air Brayton cycles can provide heat and power to small communities with no access to the national grid. However, the temporal mismatch between the energy supply and demand can limit the amount of solar energy successfully transferred to the user. To increase this solar utilization factor, a high-temperature latent heat thermal energy storage unit for temperatures of up to 750 K, dedicated to a solar air Brayton cycle, is designed and tested under realistic operating conditions. The storage unit is charged employing the cycle exhaust and discharged after sunset to serve domestic heating applications. In agreement with the identified operating conditions, four storage material candidates are shortlisted and characterized. Thus, the so-called solar salt was selected as the most suitable material by means of 3D numerical analysis to meet a series of performance, durability, cost, and compactness requirements. The proposed latent heat thermal energy storage device was tested with 151 kg of solar salt and allowed for the storage of up to 17.5 kWh in a 10 h charging time. Overall, the numerical and experimental results reported in this work demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed device as a cost-effective and durable thermal storage solution in small-scale solar air Brayton cycles.

Original language	English
Article number	118994
Number of pages	15
Journal	Applied Thermal Engineering
Volume	216
Early online date	26 Jul 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2022.118994
Publication status	Published - 5 Nov 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from Innovate UK for the project “Solar-Turbo CHP, Semi-Renewable, Grid Independent Micro Combined Heat and Power System” (Ref: 105920) as well as funding from the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) of South Africa. Furthermore, the authors acknowledge Ms. Nikha Harris, Ms. Sarah Jacob and Mr. Westley Roosendaal for their most valuable contributions during the manufacturing and testing of the experimental setup. The paper was presented and published in the proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics (HEFAT2021), Online, 26 – 28 July 2021

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Energy Engineering and Power Technology
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

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Humbert2022_Development_of_a_latentFinal published version, 10.2 MBLicence: Creative Commons: Attribution (CC BY)

https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1359431122009309

Analysis of synthetic polymers in frozen LUCAS soil samples
Krause, S. (Principal Investigator)
European Commission
1/01/20 → 31/12/23
Project: EU

Cite this

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abstract = "Solar air Brayton cycles can provide heat and power to small communities with no access to the national grid. However, the temporal mismatch between the energy supply and demand can limit the amount of solar energy successfully transferred to the user. To increase this solar utilization factor, a high-temperature latent heat thermal energy storage unit for temperatures of up to 750 K, dedicated to a solar air Brayton cycle, is designed and tested under realistic operating conditions. The storage unit is charged employing the cycle exhaust and discharged after sunset to serve domestic heating applications. In agreement with the identified operating conditions, four storage material candidates are shortlisted and characterized. Thus, the so-called solar salt was selected as the most suitable material by means of 3D numerical analysis to meet a series of performance, durability, cost, and compactness requirements. The proposed latent heat thermal energy storage device was tested with 151 kg of solar salt and allowed for the storage of up to 17.5 kWh in a 10 h charging time. Overall, the numerical and experimental results reported in this work demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed device as a cost-effective and durable thermal storage solution in small-scale solar air Brayton cycles.",

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Development of a latent heat thermal energy storage unit for the exhaust of a recuperated solar-dish Brayton cycle

Abstract

Bibliographical note

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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Analysis of synthetic polymers in frozen LUCAS soil samples

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