Latent heat storage for hot beverages

Abstract

Latent heat storage has shown a great potential in many engineering applications. The utilization of latent heat storage has been extended from small scales to large scales of thermal engineering applications. In food industry, latent heat has been applied in food storage. Another potential application of latent heat storage is to maintain hot beverages at a reasonable drinking temperature for longer periods. In the present work, a numerical calculation was performed to investigate the impact of utilizing encapsulated phase change material PCM on the temperature of hot beverage. The PCM was encapsulated in rings inside the cup. The results showed that the encapsulated PCM reduced the coffee temperature to an acceptable temperature in shorter time. In addition, the PCM maintained the hot beverage temperature at an acceptable drinking temperature for rational time.