Jabbari-Hichri, A., Bennici, S., Auroux, A., IRCELYON, ProductionsScientifiques, ENERGIE (ENERGIE), Institut de recherches sur la catalyse et l'environnement de Lyon (IRCELYON), Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL), Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Chimie du CNRS (INC)-Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL), and Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Chimie du CNRS (INC)
International @ ENERGIE+AJH:SBE:AAU; International audience; KEYWORDS: Heat storage, Composite materials, Porous matrix, Hydrate of salts The energy challenge imposed by exhaustion of fossil fuels and their increasing consumption has favoured the emergence of optimal energy management based on the use of alternative resources such as solar energy. Sustainable development of the contemporary society requires exploring a new clean technology for production and storage of energy. The household sector is the main consumer of energy. A large part of this energy is consumed by heating systems. Therefore, good management of household thermal comfort implies the decrease in consumption of this energy, while indoor temperature stays the same. This can be achieved through the use of thermo-chemical energy storage technology. Thermo-chemical storage materials offer heath storage capacities of long time periods. Several researches have investigated possibilities of thermo-chemical heat storage [1] and of their applications. However, in order to increase the stored energy density, new composite materials should be developed and characterized. These materials are usually composed from the combination of a host material and a hygroscopic salt. This kind of composite material makes a powerful system where the type of storage is twice enhanced: firstly the porous matrix is used to release and store heat through the sorption-desorption cycles of water vapor, secondly, salt hydrates are used to release and store energy by chemical reaction of sorption-desorption. The most challenging task in development of such materials is the choice of porous host materials which could contain salt hydrates [2] and thus allow to get a higher sorption heat. In this work, in order to develop a new composite material safe, cheap and presenting a high energy density with an optimal sorption capacity for seasonal heat storage, several porous host materials such as silica gel, silica alumina gel, activated carbon, alumina, bentonite and aerosil were tested for their heats of sorption-desorption of water vapor by using a TG-DSC apparatus. From the presented results (Fig. 1), it is easy to see that the silica alumina gel, silica gel and alumina achieved the highest heats of hydration/dehydration (60, 53 and 52 kJ.mol-1 of H2O respectively) compared to those of bentonite, activated carbon and aerosil (26, 16 and 15 kJ.mol-1 of H2O respectively). The choice of the hygroscopic salt hydrates depends on many selection criteria [3] such as their low price, weak environmental footprint and reversible heat of water vapor sorption during their hydration/dehydration reaction but also on improving their structural stability during thermal cycling. Fig.1: TG-DSC analysis of the heat of hydration/dehydration using different materials. For this aim, eleven salt hydrates were selected to impregnate the host materials and tested during hydration-dehydration. The sorption heats were determined by using a C80 calorimeter (SETARAM), the cell being flushed by a water vapor saturated gas flow of helium. Research work on storing heat has resulted in the development of innovative materials developed specifically for this application. Various techniques have been carried out to characterize the materials in their surface and bulk properties by BET and XRD respectively. References: [1] Stach, H., Mugele, J., Jänchen, J. & Weiler, E. Adsorption 11, Boston(2005); 393-404. [2]L.G. Gordeeva, Y.I. Aristov, Carbon Techn(2012); 1-15. [3]Sharma SD, Sagara K. International Journal of Green Energy( 2005);2:156.