Experimental Investigation on The Characteristics of A Phase Change Material Thermal Energy Storage Using Capillary Tubes as Heat Exchanger

Cool thermal energy storage has been used in air conditioning applications as a mean to modify the electricity demand for cooling, where cool energy could be stored temporarily in the storage material and used at a later time. Various technologies have been researched and implemented to reduce energy usage for air conditioning systems, one of them being latent heat thermal energy storage system. Phase change material such as fatty acid could be utilized to store energy in its latent heat. This research aimed to characterize cool thermal energy storage using fatty acid as phase change material during its charging and discharging phase using capillary tube mats as heat exchanger. The parameters used in this study were the temperature distribution of the phase change material and heat transfer fluid to analyse the thermal power and accumulated energy during charging and discharging period, and the capacity effectiveness of the system. The temperature data was gained using PT-100 sensors that were placed in different parts of the system, including six temperature sensors that were placed inside of the phase change material storage tank. The results of this study showed that the developed storage system had the maximum amount of stored cool energy of 8.7 kWh and the system effectiveness of 50%.