Speaker
Description
There is a renewed interest in returning astronauts to the Moon and establishing a sustainable human exploration capability on its surface. One of the greatest challenges in the Moon exploration, is the storage of energy which reduces the potential complexity and mass of a stand-alone power system. Due to the prohibitive cost of transportation of materials from Earth, there is a need to assess In-Situ Resources Utilization approaches for energy production and storage. One of the emerging options is represented by Thermal Energy Storage using Phase Change Materials [1]. In such a way, the solid-liquid and liquid-solid phase transitions are “capitalized” to rake and release enthalpy (i.e. latent heat). However, the presence of a phase transition requires the development of specific devices able to confine and retain the PCM in a molten state. These “shape stabilizers” include containers, vessels and porous matrixes. In addition, the efficiency increases with the increasing of the working temperature.
Taking into account such requirements, a new generation of materials suitable for proficient latent heat thermal energy storage devices at UHT (up to 2000°C) have been investigated in the present paper. Specifically, new UHT Polymer Derived Ceramics (PDCs) such as SiOC and SiOCN refractories with tailored microstructure as housing/casing systems for liquid Si selected as metal Phase Change Material (mPCM), have been tested. In addition, a theoretical/experimental combined method based on thermodynamics and experimental studies on the interfacial phenomena occurring at the PDCs/PCM interfaces, has been applied. In particular, the results obtained by wetting/infiltration experiments with the related observed PDCs/PCM microstructures will be presented and compared with previous attempts [2, 3].
[1] Y. Lin et al. Renew. Sust. Energ. Rev. 82 (2018) 2730.
[2] A. Datas et al. Proceedings of the AIP Conf. Proceedings (2018) 170004
[3] W. Polkowski et al. Silicon 12 (2020) 1639.
| Speaker Country | Italy |
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