Molecular solar thermal (MOST) energy storage and release system

Abstract

K. Moth-Poulsen would like to thank the Danish research council (grant 09-066585/FNU), the Swedish Research Council (grant 2011-3613), and Chalmers Material and Energy areas of advance for financial support. We acknowledge the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Scalable and Integrated Nanomanufacturing SINAM fund CMMI-0751621 and CHE-0907800 (K.P.C.V.) for assisting this work, and the UC Berkeley Marvell Nanofabrication Laboratory for facilitating the assembly of the microfluidic devices. Notes and references

Kaolinite stabilized paraffin composite phase change materials for thermal energy storage

“…However, the use of solar thermal energy is limited by the inherent challenge of intermittency (Moth-Poulsen et al, 2012). That is to say, the absence of the sunlight at night or scarcity on a gloomy day is challenging for continuous solar thermal energy.…”

Photon energy storage materials with high energy densities based on diacetylene–azobenzene derivatives

“…The enthalpy difference of the metastable and thermodynamically stable states, DH, is the conformational energy stored in the materials, which may be triggered to release by optical, thermal, electrical, and electrochemical methods. 8 There are various photochromic molecules that exhibit reversible structural changes upon illumination, notably anthracene, 9 stilbene, 10 fulvalene diruthenium, 11 azobenzene, 12 and norbornadiene 13 systems. Among these candidates, azobenzene derivatives are selected for our study due to their low cost, facile synthesis, and remarkable chemical stability over repeated operation of photoisomerization and reverse thermal isomerization between trans and cis forms.…”

Determining the Photoisomerization Quantum Yield of Photoswitchable Molecules in Solution and in the Solid State

“…The change in polarity has been exploited to photoswitch surface hydrophobicity1011. Furthermore, the energy difference has been used to collect and store solar energy1213, and the difference in the LUMO or HOMO levels has been used for photoswitchable electronics1415.…”