Development of a Carbon Felt/Salt-Based Hybrid Material for Thermal Energy Storage Applications

Abstract

A LiBr/LiOH non-eutectic mixture shows a potentially outstanding heat energy density of 800 J/g at a constant temperature, which makes it a very promising candidate for heat storage applications around 300 °C. However, salt-based phase change materials are known for their too low thermal conductivity which can question the thermal storage systems effective feasibility. The objective here is to infiltrate a carbon felt of high porosity (> 93%) with the LiBr/LiOH mixture to anticipate this deficiency. The device has to be adapted according to the properties and the characteristics of the studied storage and host materials. The developed procedure for the carbon felt infiltration with the synthesized binary system is presented. The optimised working conditions allow (1) minimizing the interaction time duration between the quartz tube and the salt-based mixture and, (2) verifying the good chemical compatibility of the mixture with the host matrix after infiltration.

Structural Characterisation and Chemical Stability of Commercial Fibrous Carbons in Molten Lithium Salts

“…In addition, to ensure complete impregnation, an additional smaller nickel crucible (10 mL, VWR) was placed on the lightweight CF to keep it still at the bottom and in contact with the molten LiOH, LiBr or Li 4 (OH) 3 Br. In this context, Achchaq et al (2018) [36] used a simple infiltration protocol to confirm the complete infiltration process of the nonwoven CFs with the molten PC, and the corresponding process was also successfully performed. Then, the prepared test samples were transferred to a horizontal stainless steel tubular reactor (Carbolite Gero furnace, Neuhausen, Germany) constantly under an N 2 flow rate of 100 mL min −1 .…”