Thermochemical heat storage based on a gas–solid
interaction
is an effective long-term energy storage technology and is considered
as one of the important technologies for the recovery of industrial
waste heat and renewable energy sources such as solar energy. There
are many working pairs used for thermochemical heat storage, among
which ammonium halides are widely trusted for their good thermodynamic
properties. It has attracted a lot of attention in the past decade,
but it is still in the laboratory-scale research stage. In this study,
the adsorption behavior of strontium bromide surfaces on the atomic
scale is investigated using density functional theory with SrBr2/NH3 as the working pair. The optimal adsorption
location of ammonia molecules on the strontium bromide surface is
determined. Meanwhile, different metal atoms were doped to explore
the microscopic factors affecting the adsorption. The energy barrier
of the SrBr2/NH3 reaction was 4.507 kcal/mol,
which was reduced to 4.145 kcal/mol after doping Mg. The thermodynamics
of the Ca atoms doped with SrBr2 were significantly improved,
with a reduction in the energy barrier to 0.727 kcal/mol. Comparing
the three energy barrier results, Ca doping has a significant optimization
effect on the thermal storage process. The results could provide relevant
information for the investigation of thermochemical adsorption heat
storage, provide insight into the adsorption mechanism of ammonium
molecules on strontium bromide, and also facilitate the design of
efficient composite adsorbents.