Systematic review on the use of heat pipes in latent heat thermal energy storage tanks

Abstract

This systematic review presents and discusses the previous research about hybrid devices which combine latent thermal energy storage (TES) technology and heat pipes. A bibliometric analysis of this issue shows how hybrid systems have globally grown popularity during time, providing details about the main researchers and research centres on this particular field. Then, the identified papers are assessed and categorized in two main sections, the experimental research carried out, and the numerical modelling of hybrid systems. Experimental research is later classified regarding the operating temperature range, and their final application. Numerical studies are also further categorized, accordingly to how heat pipes were modelled in this case. This review points out the lack of experimental studies at high temperatures, especially when many simulations extended their models (validated at low temperatures) to higher temperature designs. The paper provides details about the research performed, so the gap for future investigations can be spotted.

This work was partially funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement 723596 with reference name Innova MicroSolar. This work was partially funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades de España (RTI2018-093849-B-C31 - MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE) and by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), of the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (RED2018-102431-T). José Miguel Maldonado would like to thank the Spanish Government for his research fellowship (BES-2016-076554). The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research group (2017 SGR 1537). GREiA is a certified TECNIO agent in the category of technology developers from the Government of Catalonia. This work is partially supported by ICREA under the ICREA Academia programme.