Thermal energy storage in a packed bed of iron spheres with liquid sodium coolant

A perspective on high‐temperature heat storage using liquid metal as heat transfer fluid

“…As an alternative for the application in CSP, a packed-bed heat storage with iron spheres in single or multiple tanks with Na as the heat transfer fluid was mentioned by Pomeroy in 1979. 16 In 2012, a single-tank concept with a floating barrier between the hot and the cold Na was proposed by Hering et al 17 For the use as thermal energy storage systems in nuclear power plants, hexagononal steel structures were suggested to be used with Na as the heat transfer fluid by Forsberg. 18,19 A previous evaluation of the author regarding different storage solutions showed that, when using Na, a packed-bed thermal energy storage is a promising solution based on five evaluation parameters (storage medium cost, storage density, cycling behavior, technology readiness level, and suitability for Na).…”

Analytical simulation in heat storage systems

“…We will consider first the first class of problems, relevant mainly (but not only) to the new systems proposed in solar energy storage assuming more and more importance [12,13] (packed beds with water as a fluid, storage in adsorbent materials, or beds of iron spheres with liquid sodium coolant), in which Kt and Ks are put equal to zero; the second class of problems, essentially concerned with air-rock beds, with vanishing z and Kf and small K~, is treated later in Sec. 5.…”

“…Attention will be paid to the fluid to solid volume heat capacity ratio, generally ignored because very close to zero, being air the usual fluid and rock the usual solid [10,.11]. Because of the importance assumed by new systems proposed in solar energy storage [12,13] (mainly adsorbent materials with water as a fluid, or packed beds of iron spheres with liquid sodium coolant), it appears in fact greatly significant to carry on a parametric study with respect to the above mentioned ratio, which can be considerably different from zero in these new situations. The analytical solutions are not restricted to a bed with uniform initial temperature, but hold even for a spatially non uniform initial temperature distribution of both fluid and solid phases, such as expected to occur in most operational modes.…”

Experimental investigations on the design of a dual-media thermal energy storage with liquid metal

“…However, liquid metals are promising options as HTFs since they have high heat conductivity, which leads to a high heat absorption efficiency, as has been shown for several applications as for concentrating solar and nuclear power plants [5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. Liquid metals are also proposed for thermal energy storage [12,13,14]. Furthermore, they are stable in a wide temperature range, so that a thermal energy storage system using liquid metal as HTF can be operated not only at high temperature but also in a wide range down to medium temperature levels.…”