ENERGY RECOVERY UNIT USING PHASE CHANGE MATERIALS

Energy recovery can benefit from phase change materials. A phase change material is a substance with a high heat of fusion, melting, and solidifying at a certain temperature, which is capable of storing and releasing large amounts of energy. The objective of this research is to enhance the efficiency of a system by performing experiments with corrugated plates within the recovery unit and paraffin as the PCM (Phase Change Material). This research focuses on understanding Thermal Energy Storage ( TES) at melting temperature for heating. This research used corrugated plates as an advanced material and channels of media which carry the thermal fluid (water) to the back plate of the unit which was occupied with the PCM or in this case paraffin. The experiment measured the temperature in and out from the unit to estimate how much kWh (power) that unit can save in the molten wax and also, monitor the temperature inside the PCM using implanted thermocouples. The approach of this work is to collect temperature as a function of time to find how much energy units are used to reach the charging point and reverse the flow to retrieve energy from the unit.