Design and Development of Lauryl Alcohol Based Thermal Energy Storage System for Cooling Purpose /

Abstract

Renewable energy technologies gained substantial importance in recent years which reduced the use of conventional hydrocarbon fuels significantly, since they are sustainable, green and environment friendly. Large amount of energy is utilized by buildings especially for cooling purpose. It is assessed that 40 percent of the world’s total energy is used by the buildings, resulting in 33 percent increase of the greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions every year. To overcome the excessive energy used by the cooling equipment, free cooling of the buildings using latent heat thermal energy storage (LTES) technologies via phase change materials (PCMs) is one of feasible option to fulfill the energy demand of the building in an economical and efficient way. A “free cooling” technique uses PCMs as cold accumulators during night time ventilation of buildings. In this concept, cold air at night is consumed to freeze PCM to a lower temperature and this stored cold energy is used during the day time. “Lauryl alcohol” encapsulated into aluminum tube serpentine shape placed in a wooden box is used as PCM in experiments for free cooling technique. Airs enters from a nozzle and flow over a tube in a properly designed channel to store and release the energy during charging and discharging. The amount of lauryl alcohol filled in tube is 160g which store 37 kJ and recovered 35 kJ of energy during phase change. The transfer of heat during charging and discharging is 9.6W and 9.37W respectively.