Experimental Investigation on Eliminating Supercooling Nature of Ice and Improving its Energy Storage Performance to Establish an Energy-Efficient Cold Thermal Storage

Abstract

Energy efficiency is a crucial parameter for sustainable development. Eliminating the supercooling and enhancing the energy storage performance of the ice-cold thermal storage system (CTSS) is vital to make it more reliable and sustainable. In the present study, the supercooling issue of ice was eliminated using 1-Hexadecanol. Further, the energy storage performance of ice was enhanced using an aluminium honeycomb core (AHC), which is considered to be the most promising method of improving the charging performance. The optimal size of AHC was identified by performing the experiments with three sizes (large, medium and small) of AHC. Further, the discharging [heat transfer fluid temperature (Tw) = 13 °C)] and the charging [Tw = -3, -6 and -9 °C)] experiments were conducted before and after adding the optimal size AHC inside the various diameters (64, 85 and 105 mm) spherical enclosure (S.E)). The supercooling nature of water is eliminated after adding 3 wt% of 1-Hexadecanol, and the medium-size AHC is optimal. The optimum heat transfer fluid temperature for charging is -6 °C, and the smallest diameter S.E provided better discharging and charging performance. The average decrease in charging time and improvement in charging rate realised upon adding AHC are 30.23% and 43.54%, respectively. When the AHC is added with ice, the effective utilisation ratio improved considerably (6.13 to 6.48), and the energy storage capacity reduced slightly (1.76% to 1.91%). The above experimental results implicate that the employment of AHC would pave the way for effectively enhancing the energy storage performance of ice.