Thermodynamics of Energy Storage by Melting Due to Conduction or Natural Convection

This paper describes the most basic thermodynamic aspects of the process of energy storage by melting of a phase change material when the energy source is a stream of hot single-phase fluid. The first part of the paper considers the melting process ruled by pure conduction across the liquid phase, and the second part deals with the quasi-steady melting dominated by natural convection. The paper establishes the relationship between the total irreversibility of the melting process and design parameters such as the number of heat transfer units of the heat exchanger placed between the energy source and the phase change material, the duration of the melting process, and the position of the energy storage process on the absolute temperature scale. It is shown that the exergy transfer to the melting material is maximized when the melting temperature (Tm) equals the geometric average of the environment temperature (Te) and the temperature of the energy source (T∞), in other words when Tm=(TeT∞)1/2. This conclusion holds for both conduction-dominated melting and convection-dominated melting.