Abstract:
Pakistan is situated in the region where it experiences all kinds of weather, from exhausting heats to shivering colds. As human is sensitive to the temperature changes and requires a comfortable condition to perform efficiently. In such conditions different equipment operating on various energy sources are used to achieve thermal comfort. In Pakistan mostly gas heaters are used due to the availability of natural gas as a common household commodity. This is an in-efficient way of achieving thermal comfort as it consumes more energy than required to raise the temperature to a comfortable limit. In this work Latent Thermal Energy Storage (LTES) was designed to be integrated with domestic gas heater to utilize the excessive energy during space heating. This energy was used to charge Magnesium Chloride Hexahydrate and during the unavailability of the heating source the same energy was used for heating the room. Lab scale experimentations were carried out. Findings revealed that 60g of MCHH can store up to 30kJ of thermal energy. If the process involves natural convection, then the stored energy can be discharged to the atmosphere in 25 mins increasing the source availability time for 46% in the absence of gas. If the same system is designed for providing 1kW for 3hrs then the cost on material will be approx. PKR 63000 and the cost of encapsulation will be added to this cost which will become too costly for a domestic user. The system is not recommended at domestic level as the material behavior in not controllable during charging, therefore, some other systems are recommended with TES for efficient heating applications.
