Innovative and sustainable carbon-based composites for high temperature sensible thermal energy storage

Introduction

Although affordable solutions exist to store and recover heat from low temperature sources, the high temperature ones (> 550 °C) such as concentrated solar and waste heat from high temperature energy intensive industries remain challenging since efficient and affordable storage materials are scarce. The waste heat from these industries is huge and corresponds to 16% (122 Terawatt hours) of the total heat consumption per year in Europe.

Project Overview

STOREHEAT targets the investigation of an outstanding and novel family of High Storage Capacity materials, namely Calcium Carbide-based Composites (3C), for High Temperature Heat Storage.

Material Production

3C is produced at much lower temperatures (1000 – 1200 °C) than the current solutions (1800-2500 °C) based on silicon carbide (SiC) ceramics from fossil sources (coke) mainly.

Synthesis Process

3C is synthesized by carbonization of calcium rich biochar and has not yet been mentioned in the literature neither for high temperature storage nor the mechanism of their formation explored. Preliminary synthesis attempts showed a high temperature storage capacity for 3C of 20% higher than that of SiC while consuming much less energy and using sustainable resources for its production.

Scientific Breakthrough

The scientific breakthrough lies in the counter-intuitive and pioneering approach proposed to combine and stabilize the hierarchical carbon and metal species both from biochar to take advantage of their respective high thermal conductivity and heat capacity at high temperature. This seemingly winning combination, key for effective heat storage, has never been done before.

Research Approach

To achieve this objective, I propose an ambitious research approach combining in-situ and dynamic experimental methods and modelling to unlock the mechanisms governing the chemical phases assemblage and stabilization of 3C. The storage performance will be evaluated and optimized.

Impact

The findings will push a way beyond the frontier of knowledge and broaden research opportunities in scientific communities interested in energy storage.