Phase Change Matters

U.S. patent application 20190131675 (applicant Hutchinson SA, Paris, France):

"A thermal barrier to maintain the temperature of a battery. The barrier comprises elements with respectively cold and hot PCM materials, and elements, thermal isolators, arranged at least in case of some between two of the PCM material elements. ... With regard to the hot and cold PCM elements respectively, for two types of batteries for example, operating favourably at between 25° C. and 35° C. and between 45° C. and 55° C. (all to within 15%), it will in particular be possible to use encapsulated PCMs (typically microencapsulated) in a porous, open-pore matrix, preferably of the elastomer type, such as based on NBR and HNBR silicone."

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20190131675.pdf

From Applied Surface Science:

• Effects of surface functionalization on thermal and mechanical properties of graphene/polyethylene glycol composite phase change materials

From Applied Energy:

• Facile flexible reversible thermochromic membranes based on micro/nanoencapsulated phase change materials for wearable temperature sensor
• Shape-remodeled macrocapsule of phase change materials for thermal energy storage and thermal management
• Investigation on the thermal performance of a high temperature packed bed thermal energy storage system containing carbonate salt based composite phase change materials
• Toward a new method for the design of combined sensible/latent thermal-energy storage using non-dimensional analysis
• Strategic control and cost optimization of thermal energy storage in buildings using EnergyPlus
• Adaptive measures for mitigating urban heat islands: The potential of thermochromic materials to control roofing energy balance

From Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells:

• Poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene-co-acrylamide)/n-octadecane microencapsulated phase change materials for thermal energy storage

From Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews:

• Recent advances in direct expansion solar assisted heat pump systems: A review
• Review on nanoporous composite phase change materials: Fabrication, characterization, enhancement and molecular simulation

From Energy and Buildings:

• Experimental Testing of Phase Change Materials in a Warm-Summer Humid Continental Climate

From International Journal of Energy Research:

• Development of pentadecane/diatomite and pentadecane/sepiolite nanocomposites fabricated by different compounding methods for thermal energy storage

From Applied Thermal Engineering:

• Heat transfer performance of graphene nano-platelets laden micro-encapsulated PCM with polymer shell for thermal energy storage based heat sink

From Journal of Applied Polymer Science:

• Investigations on thermal properties of microencapsulated phase‐change materials with different acrylate‐based copolymer shells as thermal insulation materials

From Solar Energy:

• Experimental investigation on the impact of thermal energy storage on the solar still performance coupled with PV module via new integration

From Thermochimica Acta:

• Nanoencapsulated phase change material with polydopamine-SiO2 hybrid shell for tough thermo-regulating rigid polyurethane foam

From International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer:

• Optimization of the detailed factors in a phase-change-material module for battery thermal management

From Journal of Traffic and Transportation Engineering :

• A review on the best practices in concrete pavement design and materials in wet-freeze climates similar to Michigan

From Case Studies in Thermal Engineering:

• Study of a passive solar air heater using palm oil and paraffin as storage media

From Acta Microscopica:

• Preparation of Graphene Hybrid Material and Thermal Properties of Polymer Composites

U.S. patent application 20190086158 (inventor James Hirschfeld, Delray Beach, Fla.):

"A removable cooling sticker secured to the surface of a cellular telephone for extraction of heat from the cellular telephone. The cooling sticker is thin and sized to be conveniently carried. [Using phase change material as the active heat extraction material,] the cooling sticker is adhered to the cellular telephone at its hot spot for maximum efficiency. An optional feature employs thermal strips that indicate when the electronic device is exceeding a temperature threshold sticker."

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20190086158.pdf

From Energy Procedia:

• Development of microencapsulated phase change material with poly (methyl methacrylate) shell for thermal energy storage
• Supercooling study of erythritol/EG composite phase change materials
• Thermal performance of pouch Lithium-ion battery module cooled by phase change materials
• Active cooling based battery thermal management using composite phase change materials
• Investigation on Thermal Performance of an Integrated Phase Change Material Blind System for Double Skin Facade Buildings
• Experimental study on preparation of a novel foamed cement with paraffin/ expanded graphite composite phase change thermal energy storage material

From Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects:

• Synthesis and performance evaluation of paraffin microcapsules with calcium carbonate shell modulated by different anionic surfactants for thermal energy storage

From Journal of Materials Chemistry A:

• A novel shape-stabilization strategy for phase change thermal energy storage

From Journal of Molecular Liquids:

• Melting of phase change materials in a trapezoidal cavity: Orientation and nanoparticles effects

From Energy and Buildings:

• Development of new nano-enhanced phase change materials (NEPCM) to improve energy efficiency in buildings: lab-scale characterization

From Applied Sciences:

• Efficient Characterization of Macroscopic Composite Cement Mortars with Various Contents of Phase Change Material

From Solar Energy:

• Modelling and performance analysis of a new concept of integral collector storage (ICS) with phase change material

From Renewable Energy:

• Phase Change Material Wallboard (PCMW) melting temperature optimisation for passive indoor temperature control

From Cement and Concrete Research:

• Multiphysics analysis of effects of encapsulated phase change materials (PCMs) in cement mortars

From Journal of Molecular Liquids:

• Preparation and characterization of sodium sulfate pentahydrate/sodium pyrophosphate composite phase change energy storage materials

From Energy and Buildings:

• Performance of heat pump integrated phase change material thermal storage for electric load shifting in building demand side management
• Indoor thermal comfort assessment using PCM based storage system integrated with ceiling fan ventilation: Experimental design and response surface approach

From International Journal of Photoenergy:

• Experimental Study on the Performance of a Phase Change Slurry-Based Heat Pipe Solar Photovoltaic/Thermal Cogeneration System

From Solar Energy:

• Effects of sodium nitrate concentration on thermophysical properties of solar salts and on the thermal energy storage cost
• Red-mud geopolymer composite encapsulated phase change material for thermal comfort in built-sector [pdf]

From Energies:

• A Novel Encapsulation Method for Phase Change Materials with a AgBr Shell as a Thermal Energy Storage Material

The Virginia Tech team that won first place in the 2018 Solar Decathlon Middle East credits a good share of its success to the deft use of phase change material donated by Insolcorp LLC of New London, N.C.

FutureHAUS, the lone U.S. entry, topped 13 other finalists and more than 60 total entrants in the competition organized by the U.S. Department of Energy and the United Arab Emirates’ Dubai Electricity & Water Authority. Australia's University of Wollongong finished second. The finals took place in November in the desert heat of Dubai.

Insolcorp donated 400 square feet of two types of Infinite R PCM mats. Both are salt hydrates, one with a melt point of 21 degrees Celsius, the other a melt point of 22 degrees C. The phase change material acts as a thermal battery, absorbing and releasing thermal energy as it solidifies and melts.

The Virginia Tech team deployed the mats in the plenum of its 900-square-foot solar-powered house. The PCM allowed the team to take advantage of a rule that limited the use of solar energy to 8kw at any one time, with one exception: Unlimited use of solar energy for air conditioning was allowed during daily inspection periods to assure visitor comfort. The PCM mats, solidified during those periods, helped keep the house comfortable at other times. That helped the FutureHAUS achieve the highest score in net energy use, a key metric in the competition.

"Every team struggled with the 8kw limit," said Joseph Wheeler, right, lead faculty on FutureHAUS and co-director of Virginia Tech's Center for Design Research. "Typically, during peak energy, you would be generating lots and lots of power, which you could easily charge your batteries with, which you could easily run all your tasks, and you could feed the grid, and build up quite a bit of surplus so that you would remain energy positive throughout the two weeks of competition.

"But, since they limited inverter use at any one time to 8kw, it really put a limit to what our energy budget was. We saw phase change as batteries. A massive ton of batteries. ... It's more of a strategy for a competition than it is for a realized situation. But in a realized situation, we know the value of the PCM. Heat energy, cost of power being cheaper at night than during the day where you can charge your systems and load shift. Practically, PCMs make a lot of sense. And we wanted to have the PCMs in this house for practical reasons, not just for competition reasons. ...

"In simple terms, we eased the demand for the HVAC every afternoon. It was the hottest time of the day and it was also the time when we were getting less power from the solar panels because the sun was moving down. It was a critical time because we knew that once the sun went down, we had to survive on battery. And we had a limit. They limited every house to 15kw of battery."

The FutureHAUS team finished in the top three in eight of the competition's 10 categories: first place in Architecture, House Functioning and Sustainable Transportation; second place in Sustainability and Innovation; and third place in Engineering/Construction, Energy Efficiency and Comfort Conditions.

The FutureHAUS entry was a two-year university-wide effort. More than 100 Virginia Tech students helped design and build the structure, with help from faculty members in architecture, urban studies, science, engineering and other departments.

The house consists of 18 modular  "cartridges" built inside a Virginia Tech research facility. It was first assembled on campus in Blacksburg, Va., last summer. After testing, it was disassembled, shipped to Dubai and then reassembled at the competition site in just two days. It has since been shipped back to Blacksburg, where it will undergo testing to measure its various energy-saving components.

"We now have a system in place where we can collect data and can truly test the performance," Wheeler said. "We know the PCM worked for us during the competition because we did have some temperature sensors in the ceiling. And so we were able to prove that we were reaching the pre-state when those PCMs were being charged. But we really want to collect a lot more data and look at it in real-world situations."

U.S. patent application 20190051955 (applicant Consortium de Recherche BRP / Universite de Sherbrooke, Canada):

"A battery pack for a vehicle is presented. The battery pack comprises a plurality of bricks, each brick of the plurality of bricks comprising a phase change material block, a side of the phase change material block defining a plurality of channels, and a plurality of battery cells, each battery cell being disposed at least in part in the phase change material block; and at least one connector for electrically connecting a first one of the plurality of bricks to a second one of the plurality of bricks, the at least one connector being disposed at least partially in one of the plurality of channels."

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20190051955.pdf

From Journal of Energy Storage:

• Preparation of hydrophobic lauric acid/SiO2 shape-stabilized phase change materials for thermal energy storage

From Applied Thermal Engineering:

• Development of paraffin wax as phase change material based latent heat storage in heat exchanger

• Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology and Universidad de La Rioja have created a system capable of storing solar energy for extended periods. The Molecular Solar Thermal Energy Storage system uses a molecular photo switch made from carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen. Sunlight turns the molecule into an energy-rich isomer. The isomer can be stored in a liquid form to be used for heating at night or in winter. “The energy in this isomer can now be stored for up to 18 years. And when we come to extract the energy and use it, we get a warmth increase which is greater than we dared hope for,” said Kasper Moth-Poulsen, professor at Chalmers.

• New research at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reveals how an unusual type of ice known as Ice VII can form at speeds over 1,000 miles per hour. "This ice type was only discovered occurring naturally in March, trapped inside diamonds deep underground," reports Science Alert, "and this latest study looks in detail at how exactly it takes shape – apparently in a way that's completely different to how water usually freezes into ice."

• A research team at the Graz University of Technology, Austria, has combined the advantages of pumped storage technology and heat storage using water as a medium in a hybrid storage concept called "hot-water pumped storage hydropower." The new system stores and supplies electricity, heat and cooling energy. 

• The U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) has openings for program directors, tech-to-market advisors and two-year fellowships.  

• Registration is open for the 2019 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, to be held in Denver, Colo., July 8-10. Now in its 10th year, the annual conference and technology showcase "brings together experts from different technical disciplines and professional communities to think about America’s energy challenges in new and innovative ways."

• A full agenda is available for the World Bio Markets conference, to be held in Amsterdam, Netherlands, April 1-3. Speakers include Rolf Hogan, executive director, Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials; Chris Sayner, vice president customer alliances, corporate sustainability, Croda; and Davide Bragholi, project manager, environmental innovations, Tetra Pak. 

• Registration is open for the inaugural Thermal Materials Summit to be held in Los Angeles on May 2. This technical forum will explore the latest advancements in thermal interface materials for professionals working in aerospace, automotive, telecom, batteries and other fields. Presentation proposals are due by Dec. 7.

• Ecozen Solutions of India is one of five finalists in Rabobank’s inaugural Food Loss Challenge Asia. The competition aims to identify innovative ag-tech start-ups working to solve farm-to-market food loss problems. The finalists will present their solutions to a panel of judges at Rabobank’s annual Asia Food & Agribusiness advisory board meeting in Singapore later this month. Ecozen makes portable solar cold rooms for small farms, using a thermal storage unit that can store power for more than 36 hours in case of cloudy or rainy weather.

• What happens when designers and scientists collaborate on new materials? Ten teams set out to answer that question over a six-month period. The results were on display at Dutch Design Week 2018 earlier this month. A metallic radiator filled with phase change materials and nanowires was one of 10 projects featured in the "What Matter_s" exhibition in Eindhoven. The "Array" radiator, the work of furniture designer Amy Wang, architect Tim Söderström and two nanotechnologists, Professor Magnus Borgström and Dr. Vilgailè Dagytè, is designed to absorb and disperse heat in reaction to changing ambient temperatures.

• Prem Sundharam, global sustainability leader for DLR Group, will be among the speakers at this week's California Green Technology Schools and Community College Conference in Pasadena. "Looking forward to discussing about Zero-Net Energy Buildings, California's Duck-Curve and the application of Phase Change Materials (PCM) as an effective solution," he wrote on LinkedIn last week. "Bonus: Also sharing how to integrate innovative energy technology (PCM) into school curriculum and have students be active participants in this cutting-edge research!"  

• EnergyNest of Norway is partnering with the Italian utility Enel to analyze the potential for integrating industrial-scale thermal batteries into Enel’s thermal power plants. EnergyNest's battery, right, consists of steel cassettes with pipes encased in Heatcrete, a special type of concrete developed in partnership with HeidelbergCement.

• New from QY Research: "Global (United States, European Union and China) Salt Hydrate Market Research Report 2018-2025"

• As the solar industry has grown, the market has been flooded with cheaply made Chinese panels. The panels are wearing out in as little as five years, the Verge reports, and recycling isn’t economically viable right now. “It’s going to be a major problem,” said Mary Hutzler, a senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research.  

• Vertellus, the specialty chemicals company based in Indianapolis, has named John Van Hulle its new chief executive officer. He previously served as president of global color and additives for Ohio-based PolyOne, and CEO of Wisconsin-based chemical supplier ChemDesign. 

• PureTemp LLC is moving its Minnesota administrative office from Plymouth to Minneapolis, effective Oct. 31. The new address: 4232 Park Glen Road, Minneapolis, MN 55416.

• SolarReserve has been selected to receive a $2 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Energy Technologies Office to advance concentrating concentrating solar power research and development. SolarReserve's CSP technology uses molten salt as a heat transfer fluid and thermal energy storage medium.