Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
integrated with the so-called thermochemical energy storage system (Mette et al.
2012
). This system comes under the classification of open adsorption storage
systems, which effectively utilizes the ambient or exhaust air for the discharge of the
stored heat energy.
The collector loop heat exchanger bridges the solar thermal combisystem with
the thermochemical energy storage system. The thermochemical energy storage
system comprises of material storage (reservoir) and a reactor store, where the heat
and mass transfer of the reacting components takes place during the charging and
discharging processes. The material construction of the material reservoir and the
reactor store are carefully designed to withstand the high temperature that may
occur during the regeneration process. The provision for the external reactor
concept in this system provides additional merit to separate out the storage
material from the reactor.
This facilitates for the reaction to take place only on the required material in
small quantities of the whole material store per unit time period. The storage
material is transported between the material reservoir and the reactor by means of
the vacuum conveying system, which allows the designed quantity of the material
to get transported with reduced energy consumption.
The material from the storage is allowed to enter the cross-flow reactor from the
top, which then moves through the reactor by the gravitational action. The ambient
or exhaust air which enters in the lateral direction into the reactor transfers the heat
energy and the moisture (or humidity) to the reactor.
During the heating cycle, the heat that is released by the air is transferred to the
water loop through the air-to-water heat exchanger. On the other hand, the regen-
eration of the material takes place through the heat transfer between the flowing air
stream and the reactor through the solar collector heat exchange interface.
4.9.7 Thermochemical Energy Storage Systems for Building Heating
Applications
The attractive and a feasible route of achieving building floor heating using the
thermochemical energy storage systems is increasingly attractive in modern times.
The recent research work performed by (Caliskan et al.
2012
) has signified the
possible ways to provide floor heating in a newly constructed or a building
subjected to refurbishment using the thermochemical energy storage system. The
interesting feature of this system is that it is a combination of thermochemical and
sensible energy storage facilities, capable of addressing the building heating
demand.
In this system, the thermochemical energy storage is coupled with the aquifer
thermal storage which together is operated for accomplishing better seasonal heat
storage performance on a long-term basis. The combined system is schematically
represented in Fig.
12
.
During the charging process of the hot well of aquifer system, the heat energy
retrieved from the solar collector is fed into the thermochemical storage system
