In recent years, significant efforts were made across the globe to harness renewable energy and reduce the use of fossil fuels affecting the environment and global temperature. One of the limitations for widespread usage of renewable energy is their intermittent availability, leading to mismatch between demand and supply of energy, causing technical and operational challenges to the electric grid. Therefore, a suitable thermal energy storage system needs to be developed that can store and utilize energy during requirement.

Recently, phase change materials (PCMs) are gaining significant attention due to their inherent advantages including phase transition at nearly constant temperature and higher energy storage density. There are wide varieties of phase change materials, such as paraffin, fatty acids, salt hydrates, and molten salts, with different melting/solidification temperature ranges. Selection of phase change material plays a crucial role in the design of thermal energy storage and thermal management systems. The lower value of thermal conductivity of phase change material results in slower melting and solidification rates, which leads to the decrease in heat storage efficiency of the system. In order to make phase change materials suitable for thermal energy storage and thermal management applications, many efforts have been focused on increasing the thermal performance and durability of phase change material based thermal systems in the last decade.

However, there are still challenges and limitations associated with the use of phase change materials in different applications. This research topic is dedicated to the most recent advances in research of phase change materials for both thermal energy storage and thermal management applications.

This Research Topic aims to bring together cutting-edge research and developments in the field, showcasing the diverse applications, innovations, and advancement related to phase change materials for thermal energy storage and management systems. We invite scientists, researchers, and investigators to contribute original research and review articles that include but not limited to the following topics:

• Preparation, characterization, and analysis of advanced phase change materials

• Design methodologies of phase change material based systems for thermal energy storage and management applications

• Macro- and micro-encapsulation of phase change materials for thermal energy storage and thermal management applications

• Experimental and numerical investigations of phase change material based systems for thermal energy storage and thermal management applications

• Techno-economic analysis of phase change material based thermal systems

Submit your idea

Impact

Frontiers in Energy Research

Submit your idea

Impact