The objective of the present work was to research the storage behavior of a fluidized bed filled with a granular phase change material (PCM) with a small particle diameter (d p = 0.54 mm). The performance of the fluidized bed was compared to that of well-known storage methods such as fluidized beds with sand and packed beds based of sand and PCM. For this purpose, heating experiments were conducted in a cylindrical bed with air as the working fluid.The influence of the bed height and flow rate on the storage and recovery efficiencies of the fluidized bed of PCM was analyzed. Additionally, the stability of the PCM during various charging-discharging cycles was studied.The results indicate that this PCM is an alternative material that can be used in fluidized bed systems to increase the efficiency of storing thermal * Corresponding author. NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Chemical Engineering Journal. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. The cycling test shows that the PCM is stable under bubbling conditions up to 15 cycles, which corresponds to approximately 75 hours of continuous operation.
A definitive version was subsequently published in Chemical Engineering