Experimental Studies on Endothermic Reversible Reaction of Salts for Cooling

Abstract

Thermal energy storage has a potential future to store renewable energy. Thermochemical energy storage (TCES) is the most promising and possesses more advantages over sensible and latent heat thermal storage systems such as higher energy storage density and ambient temperature storage. The major concern at this time for TCES is to find the material or combination of materials which can be thermally stable, have high energy storage density and be nontoxic. In this paper, Fertilizer based salts as a potential TCES material for cooling applications are studied experimentally. To produce a cooling effect, salts are dissolved in water and a drop in temperature is measured experimentally. Systematic evaluation for the combination of Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) based salts are used to produce the cooling effect. Individuals and 14 various mixtures of NPK salts such as NH₄Cl, K₂SO₄, (NH₄)₂CO, NH₄NO₃, KNO₃, NaNO₃, and NH₄H₂PO₄ have been studied experimentally. The cooling effect in the range of 200-400 kJ per kg of salt is produced when the salt is dissolved in the water. It is observed that an average of 24 °C to 28 °C instant decrease in temperature is noticed when 60-80 g of water is added to the mixture of salt. Among the investigated salt mixture, NPK4 yielded a maximum temperature drop of 30 °C.

Acknowledgment

The corresponding author expresses his sincere thanks to the United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) for providing fellowship during his stay at Wichita State University, USA.

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge Wichita State University for financial support of this study.

Notes on contributors

Fenil Desai

Fenil Desai is a Ph.D. candidate and a graduate research assistant at Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas. He received his B.E in Mechanical Engineering from Veer Narmad South Gujarat University Surat in 2011 and M.E. in Mechanical Engineering specialization in Energy Engineering. He is the recipient of the College of Engineering Deans Fellowship from Wichita State University. He has 11 research articles in various international journals and conference proceedings. His research experience includes numerical and experimental investigations on thermal energy storage systems, hydrogen storage, nanomaterials for energy-efficient systems and developing novel materials for thermochemical energy storage applications. He is currently working on the projects 'solid-state hydrogen storage' and "thermochemical thermal energy storage'.

Asonganyi Atayo

Asonganyi Atayo is a masters’ student at Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas. He received his B.S in Mechanical Engineering from the same University in 2018 with a concentration on thermal/fluid sciences. Currently, his research is focused on numerical study and comparison of laser cutting of austenitic stainless-steel sheet using a continuous width Nd: YAG laser.

Jenne Sunku Prasad

Jenne Sunku Prasad received his M. Tech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, Assam, India, in 2016. He is currently a Ph.D. research scholar at the same institute. He has published seven research articles in various international journals and conference proceedings. His research experience includes numerical and experimental investigations on latent heat storage systems, hydrogen storage, metal hydride based thermochemical energy storage systems, and cooling of electronics. He is currently working on 'development of high temperature thermochemical thermal energy storage for next-generation CSP plants.'

Palanisamy Muthukumar

Palanisamy Muthukumar received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from IIT Madras in 2005. He joined the IIT Guwahati as an Assistant Professor in January 2006 and he became Professor in January 2015. He received DAAD research fellowships for visiting IKE, University of Stuttgart, Germany, during September–December 2000, June–July 2008, June–July 2010, and July 2012. He is the recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award in 2017 from the US – Indo Educational Forum, BASE Fellowship from Indo - U.S. Science and Technology Forum in 2014 and the IEI Young Engineer Award–2010 in Mechanical Engineering from the Institute of Engineers (India). He is a reviewer for many international journals. He has published more than 240 research articles in various international journals and conference proceedings. His areas of interest are hydrogen energy storage, metal hydride-based thermal machines, thermal energy storage, coupled heat and mass transfer in the porous medium, porous medium combustion, and sorption heating and cooling systems.

Muhammad Rahman

Muhammad Rahman is currently a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Wichita State University and actively involved in teaching, research and scholarship activities in the same department. He received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from U.C. Berkeley in 1988. He has published more than 100 research articles in various international journals and conference proceedings. His areas of interest are phase change heat transfer, thermal management, renewable power generation, energy storage, modeling and simulation, refrigeration and air conditioning.

Eylem Asmatulu

Eylem Asmatulu is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Wichita State University (WSU) and actively involved in teaching, research and scholarship activities in the same department. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at WSU in May 2013, which was mainly focused on the “Life cycle analysis of the advanced materials”. Throughout her studies, she has published 17 journal papers and 31 conference proceedings, authored 12 book chapters, presented ten presentations and reviewed several manuscripts in international journals and conference proceedings. She is currently researching e-waste recycling, algae-based biofuel production.