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Ice slurry: a promising technology. Technical Note on refrigerating technologies.

Author(s) : EGOLF P. W.

Type of article: Periodical article, Thematic file, Review

Summary

For centuries, ice has been considered as effective storage material for temperatures around 0 °C. Using ice can reduce the size of a water storage tank by a factor of two to ten, depending on the temperature range used for operating the system. The reason for the high energy density is the latent heat of phase change. For a pure substance, under constant pressure, at the freezing temperature, a large amount of energy is required to build up a regular crystalline structure, which leads to the solid phase. In the opposite process of melting, the crystal is destroyed and energy released at the same temperature, now called the melting temperature. For temperatures other than 0 °C, other materials that exhibit a change of phase, phase-change materials (PCM), can be used. In technical applications, mixtures are the most used. They show a temperature glide (continuous transition) in the enthalpy function during the phase change. If a PCM is finely dispersed in a carrier fluid, a phase-change slurry is obtained. The particles need to be stable and should not lead to high stratification effects in the system, caused by the buoyancy force. Phase-change slurries may be micro-emulsions, shape-stabilized paraffins, clathrates, microencapsulated phase-change slurries, etc. In April 2003, in Switzerland, an international conference and business forum on the new fields of PCM and energy storage based on these materials was organized. In this type of energy storage, PCMs - which have a high thermal energy density and stable temperature due to the phase change - are also used for the transport of cold or heat. Ice slurry is the oldest and most commonly used substance in the phase-change slurries group. This Technical Note briefly highlights the state of the art of this promising technology.

Available documents

Ice slurry: a promising technology (English version)

Pages: 28-35 (4 p.)

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Coulis de glace : une technologie prometteuse (French version)

Pages: 28-35 (4 p.)

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Details

  • Original title: Ice slurry: a promising technology. Technical Note on refrigerating technologies.
  • Record ID : 2005-0996
  • Languages: French
  • Source: IIF, Note tech. Technol. Froid/IIR, tech. Note Refrig. Technol./Bull. IIF-IIR/www.iifiir.org - 3 p./vol. 85 - n. 1/2005-1
  • Publication date: 2004/08

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