Early uranium metallurgy in Chicago

The current society is experiencing serious problems in terms of energy and environmental pollution. Environmentally friendly and renewable sources such as phase change materials have been employed as a reliable and effective source of energy storage. Phase change materials (PCMs) are known to absorb or release sizeable amount of energy during melting and solidification process. PCMs have been employed in both thermal protection and energy storage systems, more in active as well as passive cooling applications. However, PCMs are associated with low thermal conductivity, which hinders the process of heat rate exchange during the melting/solidification cycles. To improve the thermal conductivity of PCMs, various conductive fillers have been incorporated to such systems. Thermal cycle test is done to verify the stability of PCMs in thermal energy storage systems. This review emphasizes on the morphology, preparation methods and thermal cycle of various types of PCMs in the presence of conductive filler. Furthermore, the bibliometric analysis based on key research areas, top ten leading countries, and citations by country on phase change materials for energy storage research are reported in this review paper. The bibliometric analysis shows the dominance of the People’s Republic of China on PCMs for energy storage research.

The efficient utilization of solar energy technology is significantly enhanced by the application of energy storage, which plays an essential role. Nowadays, a wide variety of applications deal with energy storage. Due to the intermittent nature of solar radiation, phase change materials are excellent options for use in several types of solar energy systems. This overview of the relevant literature thoroughly discusses the applications of phase change materials, including solar collectors, solar stills, solar ponds, solar air heaters, and solar chimneys. Despite the complexity of their availability and high costs, phase change materials are utilized in the majority of solar energy techniques because of the considerable technical improvements they provide. While numerous studies have investigated the progress of phase change materials used in solar energy applications such as photovoltaic systems, it is vital to understand the conceptual knowledge of employing phase change materials in various types of solar thermal energy systems. Investigations into the use of phase change materials in solar applications for the purpose of storing thermal energy are still being carried out to upgrade the overall performance. This paper briefly reviews recently published studies between 2016 and 2023 that utilized phase change materials as thermal energy storage in different solar energy systems by collecting more than 74 examples from the open literature. This study focuses on demonstrating the maturity of phase change materials and their integration into solar energy applications. Based on the findings, proposals for new research projects are made.

A novel approach for sizing thermal and electrical energy storage systems for energy management of islanded residential microgrid

Large amount of thermal energy storage is essential for proceeding with further energy saving and contributing to environmental issues. The long term of weekly, monthly and seasonal thermal energy containment is useful to link between urban thermal energy demands and thermal energy sources-heat exhaust from industries, incinerations, power generations, air-conditioned buildings and other social infrastructures, and various natural heat sources such as seasonal warm and cold temperatures and solar energy. While we have to consider that we have both global limited resources-fossil fuel resources and environmental resources which is indispensable for human life, we have to continue our engineering efforts to establish the social structures of energy circulation by putting an energy source to joint use of industries and urban life through cascade use of thermal energy by each temperature level of thermal demands. Thus total energy consumption will be decreased among industries, social capitals and urban life. Now that huge thermal energy storage systems are not feasible to build on the ground, Underground thermal energy storage system (UTES) is one of the best effective solutions to the above issues, requiring us further engineering development about analysis technology on thermal analysis of underground soil behaviors and heat transfers, underground soil structure survey, underground thermal energy storage systems, low cost bore hole construction technology, underground heat exchanger technology, underground water movement control, more progressed heat pump technology, system integration of effective thermal energy consumption and storage types and peak load shavings, system operation and control technology and environmental evaluations. UTES is able to be combined with application of geo-thermal energy. Research and development efforts are continued to provide the solutions to above engineering subjects.

14 - Cooling packing and cold energy storage

Because of the unstable and intermittent nature of solar energy availability, a thermal energy storage system is required to integrate with the collectors to store thermal energy and retrieve it whenever it is required. Thermal energy storage not only eliminates the discrepancy between energy supply and demand but also increases the performance and reliability of energy systems and plays a crucial role in energy conservation. Under this paper, different thermal energy storage methods, heat transfer enhancement techniques, storage materials, heat transfer fluids, and geometrical configurations are discussed. A comparative assessment of various thermal energy storage methods is also presented. Sensible heat storage involves storing thermal energy within the storage medium by increasing temperature without undergoing any phase transformation, whereas latent heat storage involves storing thermal energy within the material during the transition phase. Combined thermal energy storage is the novel approach to store thermal energy by combining both sensible and latent storage. Based on the literature review, it was found that most of the researchers carried out their work on sensible and latent storage systems with the different storage media and heat transfer fluids. Limited work on a combined sensible-latent heat thermal energy storage system with different storage materials and heat transfer fluids was carried out so far. Further, combined sensible and latent heat storage systems are reported to have a promising approach, as it reduces the cost and increases the energy storage with a stabilized outflow of temperature from the system. The studies discussed and presented in this paper may be helpful to carry out further research in this area.

Progress and Prospects for Research and Technology Development of Supercritical CO2 Thermal Conversion Systems for Power, Energy Storage, and Waste Heat Recovery

Technology of thermal energy storage is a process of stock thermal energy by cooling or heating a storage media so that the stored energy may be used in another time for cooling and heating applications and generation of power. These systems are usually applied in industrial processes and building. In such applications, half of the consumed energy is in the form of thermal energy, the request of which may changing through the day, and from day to another. Thus, these systems can assist balance the demand of energy and offer on daily, weekly and also seasonal basis. They may reduce peak demand, costs, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions, during rising the overall efficiency of thermal energy system. More, the storage and conversion of changeable renewable energy as thermal energy may also assist increase the take part of renewables in the energy combine. They become an important for electricity storage in collection with concentration solar power where solar energy can be saved for production of electricity when disappeared the sunlight. This book consists a wide overview of different thermal energy storage materials and technology as introduction chapter. The text is followed by the classifications commonly adopted in the academic literature. Applications were followed this text as chapter two. Solar thermal energy storage is the next chapter (chapter three). The design of thermal energy storage be the chapter four. Chapter five focuses on the new techniques adopted in this field. 

Thermal performance comparison of three sensible heat thermal energy storage systems during charging cycles

The research was investigated Turkey Berries drying capability using Active Mode Indirect Solar Dryers at Kovaipudur in Coimbatore, India. The conic-shaped Thermal Energy Storage (TES) covered the solar collector selectively and photovoltaic (PV) panels used to power divergent ducts equipped with DC blowers to enhance the AMISD. An energy analysis revealed meaningful distinctions between the AMISD systems equipped with TES and those operated without TES. The implementation of Thermal Energy Storage brought about a 89.6% collector efficiency rate that exceeded the results commonly reported in related PCM-based solar drying platforms. The proposed combination of a conic-shaped PCM module and a PV-powered diverging duct serves as the main cause behind this performance gain by supporting heat retention and enhancing airflow distribution. The solar dryers achieved better overall efficiency when using TES because they reached 15.23% efficiency compared to 14.8% without TES. The TES system increased the Energy Utilization Ratio up to 29.31 from its initial value of 28. Without TES AMISD used 1384 W of energy but with the implementation of TES it only needed 1268 W to function properly. The information about energy output demonstrates TES produces maximum energy consumption efficiency both with and without Phase Change Material (PCM). The PCM integration in the Specific Collector Area (SAC) improved its energy efficiency from 6.84 to 7.1%. The Sustainability Index scores achieved 8.1 when PCM was included in the experiments while the baseline scores remained at 8.01 without PCM application. Regardless of positive findings the actual experimental data fell short of projecting greenhouse dryer service expectancy to last for 35 years. The study demonstrates that using AMISD with PCM works effectively with improved energy performance while diminishing environmental influence and decreasing operational costs. Based on present circumstances in the region Turkey Berries drying with these specifications appears feasible and sustainable.

Thermal performance study of a solar-coupled phase changes thermal energy storage system for ORC power generation

Due to the foreseeable further electrification of heating and cooling demand in buildings their electric load demand will likely increase. For these reasons it is essential to reduce the energy demand of buildings, and optimize it by using renewable energy sources (RES) in conjunction with suitable storage elements, such as thermal energy storage (TES). These two factors will, however, drastically change today’s observed “typical” building load demand profiles. Higher peak load demand during cold and hot weather conditions as well as significant PV power production on sunny days will induce new challenges for electric distribution grid operation and planning such as more frequent and higher power spikes. These challenges will be assessed and possible mitigation options, i.e. the usage of storage elements, discussed in this paper. The paper presents the energetic analysis of an office building, the Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory (LESO-PB), located in the EPFL campus in Lausanne. The building’s ener getic model was realized with the software CitySim, and validated with on-site monitoring for the time period 2011 to 2013. Further analysis shows its thermic behaviour in future climatic scenarios (IPCC model for the year 2100, scenarios B1, A1B and A2). The e lectrical load demand of the building and the electricity production by the BiPV system can be optimally matched, during the different months and hours of the day, by means of thermal and/or electrical energy storage. This enables the maximization of the building’s selfconsumption from PV power production. An assessment of the challenges for the electric distribution grid due to changing electric load demand patterns is presented for a residential as well as an office usage profile.

This paper presents the optimal operation of a building energy management system (BEMS), with combined heat and power (CHP) generation, thermal energy storage (TES), and battery energy storage (BES), subject to load demand uncertainty. The main objective is to reduce the total operating cost (TOC) and total CO2 emission (TCOE). First, we develop two models of load demand forecasting, one for weekday and the other for weekend, using artificial neural networks, long short-term memory, and convolutional neural networks. Then, we incorporate the predicted load demand and load demand uncertainty for planning the energy dispatch of the BEMS. TES aims to store the thermal energy waste from the power generation of CHP and discharge the thermal energy to the absorption chiller to supply the cooling load. BES and spinning reserve (SR) play an important role in handling the uncertainty of the load demand. The operation of BEMS, subject to the load demand uncertainty, is formulated as a linear program. We can efficiently solve the linear program and provide an optimal solution that satisfies the dispatch constraints. Thereafter, we determine the optimal size of BES, based on economics and environmental optimal operation. The proposed BEMS is compared to the previous BEMS, without BES and SR. Furthermore, we propose the multi-objective optimal operation, where the normalization for TOC and TCOE is introduced, and the multi-objective function is defined as a linear combination of normalized TOC and TCOE. The numerical results reveal the trade-off relationship between TOC and TCOE. In particular, when TCOE is minimum, TOC becomes maximum. On the other hand, when TOC is minimum, TCOE becomes maximum. The relationship provides a method to select the operating point, as well as analyze the power flow for the multi-objective optimal operation.

Assessment of solar chimney combined with phase change materials

Phase change material is considered one of the most innovative way used in the engineering world to reduce the use of energy. PCM uses the renewable resource (solar energy) to produce and store the thermal energy for different application like solar water heater, thermal energy storage in concrete, solar cooker etc. Due to the increasing population the consumption of the energy increases globally. Energy consumption can be reduced to certain limit by storing excess energy using suitable medium, which will be achieved by the usage of PCM in compact form. In this paper a review is made on the application of different PCM and the methods to improve their heat storage capacity. Usage of storage energy is limited to certain seasons, PCM help us to store the energy that is made during the time when the supply of the solar energy is surplus. The property of the PCM that makes it unique from the other storage materials is its ability for storing the latent heat during phase transition at a constant temperature.