Adipates as new phase change material: seeking for a low temperature energy storage system

• Autor(a) principal: Sequeira, Maria Carolina
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Nogueira, Bernardo A., Caetano, Fernando J. P., Diogo, Herminio, Fareleira, João M. N. A., Fausto, Rui
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/15359
• topic: Thermal energy storage at low T; Phase Change Materials (PCMs)

The recent and endless increasing need for energy is requiring imperative and efficient solutions. Renewable energies are an effective solution, but they are also intermittent, which often leads to a gap between the availability of energy and its demand. Therefore, energy storage becomes crucial for improving the efficiency by reducing the mismatch between demand and supply thus offering better management capabilities. The use of phase change materials (PCMs) became an attractive technology, especially for active cooling systems. In particular, eutectic systems can be designed for each application, allowing significant energy savings, which is very relevant in what concerns economic and environmental sustainability [1]. Equilibrium studies and their phase diagrams are crucial to characterize the behavior of these systems, particularly for new PCMs [2]. This work aims the characterization of a selected type of binary system composed by di-n-alkyl adipates that can be used for energy storage at low temperatures, starting by the construction of solid-liquid phase diagram based on Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Raman Spectroscopy results. The studied system is a binary mixture of diethyl and dibutyl adipates and reveals to behave as a eutectic system at low temperatures, possessing also polymorphism, therefore presenting a relatively complex phase diagram. The eutectic point was found around -33ºC and the polymorphism transition, being characteristic of the dibutyl adipate, occurs at around -36ºC for the overall phase diagram. Raman spectroscopy was fundamental concerning the construction of the phase diagram, enabling to identify the different solid and liquid phases of the system. This work provides new phase equilibrium data, which, to the knowledge of the authors, are the first in the literature, concerning these compounds. The studied binary system has promising characteristics for low temperature energy storage. It is also demonstrated how solid-liquid-phase equilibrium studies are the key to select the most appropriate phase change material for a specific thermal energy storage (TES) application.