Thermochemical energy storage and conversion: a-state-of-the-art review of the experimental research under practical conditions

Abstract

Thermal energy storage and conversion aims to improve the high inefficiency of the industrial processes and renewable energy systems (supply versus demand). Chemical sorption processes and chemical reactions based on solid–gas systems are a promising way to store and convert thermal energy for heating or cooling applications and, thereby to increase the efficiency of the processes and to reduce the green house effect. Although more efforts are required to bring this technology to the market, some important breakthrough have been made regarding to system efficiency. Overthelast two decades, the experimental research in this field has increased largely to validate these advances under practical conditions. Therefore, this paper gives a state-of-art review of performances obtained under practical conditions by the different prototypes built over the last two decades. In addition, the main advantages and disadvantages of solid–gas chemical sorption processes and chemical reactions are summarized.

The work is partially funded by the Spanish government (ENE2008-06687-C02-01/CON and ENE2011-22722). The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research group GREA (2009 SGR 534).