High Temperature Phase Change Materials for Thermal Energy Storage Applications: Preprint

To store thermal energy, sensible and latent heat storage materials are widely used. Latent heat thermal energy storage (TES) systems using phase change materials (PCM) are useful because of their ability to charge and discharge a large amount of heat from a small mass at constant temperature during a phase transformation. Molten salt PCM candidates for cascaded PCMs were evaluated for the temperatures near 320 degrees C, 350 degrees C, and 380 degrees C. These temperatures were selected to fill the 300 degrees C to 400 degrees C operating range typical for parabolic trough systems, that is, as one might employ in three-PCM cascaded thermal storage. Based on the results, the best candidate for temperatures near 320 degrees C was the molten salt KNO3-4.5wt%KCl. For the 350 degrees C and 380 degrees C temperatures, the evaluated molten salts are not good candidates because of the corrosiveness and the high vapor pressure of the chlorides