Investigation of MgCl2/Graphite Foam Thermal Energy Storage System with Internally Supported Plate-Fin Flow Channels

An innovative thermal energy storage system that combines the advantages of the phase-change material/graphite foam latent-heat thermal energy storage medium and the internally supported plate-fin cell architecture heat transfer fluid flow channel was developed. In this study, experimental investigations were conducted on the test module designed and optimized based the full-scale thermal energy storage system. Specifically, the performance of the thermal energy storage system was measured for charging and discharging behaviors through experimental testing, the effect of thermal cycling was determined through repeated charging and discharging testing, the influence of the interface between the phase-change material/graphite foam composite and the surface of the heat transfer fluid flow channels resulting from any gaps and/or degradation was investigated, and the experimental data was compared to the numerical simulation results. The experimental data was found to be in reasonable agreement with the numerical simulation results.