Water/Ethanol and 13X Zeolite Pairs for Long-Term Thermal Energy Storage at Ambient Pressure

Thermal energy storage is a key technology to increase the global energy share of renewables—by matching energy availability and demand—and to improve the fuel economy of energy systems—by recovery and reutilization of waste heat. In particular, the negligible heat losses of sorption technologies during the storing period make them ideal for applications where long-term storage is required. Current technologies are typically based on the sorption of vapor sorbates on solid sorbents, requiring cumbersome reactors and components operating at below ambient pressure. In this work, we report the experimental characterization of working pairs made of various liquid sorbates (distilled water, ethanol and their mixture) and a 13X zeolite sorbent at ambient pressure. The sorbent hydration by liquid sorbates shows lower heat storage performance than vapor hydration; yet, it provides similar heat storage density to that obtainable by latent heat storage (40–50 kWh/m3) at comparable costs, robustness and simplicity of the system, while gaining the long-term storage capabilities of sorption-based technologies. As a representative application example of long-term storage, we verify the feasibility of a sorption heat storage system with liquid sorbate, which could be used to improve the cold-start of stand-by generators driven by internal combustion engines. This example shows that liquid hydration may be adopted as a simple and low-cost alternative to more efficient—yet more expensive—techniques for long-term energy storage.