PERFORMANCE INVESTIGATION OF SOLAR HEAT STORAGE COLLECTOR (SHSC): Theoretical and Experimental Testing

Solar energy currently seen as one of the most promising alternatives to more conventional energy resources but require some energy management. The use of solar thermal energy has been broadly researched, accepted publicly and adopted for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning in both domestic and commercial buildings. In this study, a thermodynamics analysis and experimental testing of an open solar heat storage collector system were discussed. The principal objective of this investigation is by integrating the solar collector as the thermal storage for heating the building. The thermochemical heat storage material chosen is vermiculite + CaCl2 based on the extensive material synthesising done by the previous researcher. This material has promising properties when compared to other composite materials. The properties such as high heat storage capacity, reaction advancement, high heat and mass transfer, good cyclic ability, low toxicity, low regeneration temperature and low cost which will think to be the most promising candidates to be adopted for adsorption heat storage systems in a long-term run. A novel adsorption pipe integrating with evacuated tube collector is developed and tested in the Sustainable Research Building, University of Nottingham, UK. According to the experimental results, 79.95 Wh thermal energy is achieved using 0.026 m³ of absorbent corresponding to 3075 Wh/m3 energy storage density. In 2hr of desorption cycle, nearly 50% of moisture was disassociated from the hydrate composite materials. Thus, these experiments indicate that the composite material can be 50% dehydrate with an average of 850W/m2 solar intensities