Unit:
Department of Agricultural Development, Agrofood and Management of Natural ResourcesNKUA research material
Title:
Phase change materials in solar domestic hot water systems: A review
Languages of Item:
English
Abstract:
In this work, technologies related to the storage of solar energy, utilizing the latent heat content of phase change materials for the production of domestic hot water are reviewed. Many researchers have been involved in this field in order to accomplish the targets of environmentally friendly solutions and higher efficiency. For domestic use, materials with melting temperature between 40 and 80 °C are commonly studied, with paraffins, fatty acids, salt hydrates and alcohols being the most popular. For harvesting the solar radiation, usually flat plate or evacuated tubes solar collectors are used, either commercial ones or modified. The storage unit may include only phase change material or it can have a hybrid form combined with water. The outcome of the most studies, is that the addition of phase change materials in comparison to systems without latent storage, increases the duration of heat release towards the domestic water at the end of the day and also increases the solar collector's efficiency because it does not experience large temperature fluctuations. However, difficulties emerge during the selection of the appropriate storage material as this must have a high melting temperature in order to provide hot enough domestic water, but not higher than the temperature that the solar collector can produce, in order to fully melt the material. Moreover, investigation is necessary for the selection of the optimum water flow rate that minimizes the charging duration and maximizes the system efficiency and hot water amount. Another challenge that researchers face is the low thermal conductivity of many phase change materials. For this purpose, methods for improving the performance of the systems have been examined and they are also reported. © 2021 The Authors
Authors:
Douvi, E.
Pagkalos, C.
Dogkas, G.
Koukou, M.K.
Stathopoulos, V.N.
Caouris, Y.
Vrachopoulos, M.G.
Journal:
International Journal of Thermofluids
Keywords:
Collector efficiency; Fatty acids; Flow of water; Hot water distribution systems; Melting point; Solar energy; Storage (materials); Thermal conductivity; Water, Domestic hot water; Higher efficiency; Latent storages; Low thermal conductivity; Solar domestic hot water systems; System efficiency; Temperature fluctuation; Water flow rate, Phase change materials
Official URL (Publisher):
DOI:
10.1016/j.ijft.2021.100075
