Performance Analysis of a Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage System for Solar Energy Applications

In every solar thermal energy applications, the storage of solar energy is the most critical section of the system. To store the available solar energy at its maximum is a big challenge for the storage system. This challenge can be competed with the aid of a latent heat thermal energy storage system as it is compact and it possess high storage density. But the problem existing is cost minimization. A low cost PCM can solve this problem, from the literature survey Sodium thiosulfate pentahydrate is found to be a PCM of low cost with high latent heat of fusion and its melting point is within the desired operating environment. In order to analyze the system performance with Sodium thiosulfate pentahydrate as storage medium, the usefulness of stored energy is to be measured. But energy analysis only is inadequate to find the usefulness of stored energy. To determine this, exergy analysis based on second law of thermodynamics is required. In this work, the energy and exergy studies were experimentally done during the charging period of phase change material with a heat input of 2000W and four different mass flow rates of heat transfer fluid.