Review on Heat Transfer Enhancement of Phase Change Materials (PCMs)

For effective utilization of thermal energy storage (TES) system, selection of Phase change material (PCM) and heat transfer mechanism plays a significant role. PCMs employed in TES system undergo poor heat transfer rate due to low thermal conductivity. In order to capture larger amount of energy, it is inevitable to improve the heat transfer rate between heat transfer fluid (HTF) and PCM. The main focus of the paper is to review the previous works on heat transfer enhancement of PCMs and to develop efficient TES system. Some of the heat transfer enhancement methods namely extended surface, composite PCMs, multiple PCMs and encapsulation have been discussed. The different applications of phase change material in conserving the energy are also reviewed in this paper. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.