Author : Ajay M Nair and P Vinod Kumar Naidu

Energy is an essential requirement of development and prosperity of the nation, The major part of the energy requirement is met by fossil fuels but due to the impact of emission on environment and rapid depletion of fossil fuel reserves Many researchers are focussing in renewable sources especially solar energy as they are clean, cheap, abundantly available but due to intermittent nature and lack of proper storage system they are limited to take full advantage of these sources, PCMs thermal energy storage is found to be effective This paper focuses on the charging and discharging period analysis of Myristic acid as phase change material. In most of the medium temperature thermal energy storage systems (below700C) paraffin wax was employed as a phase change material. But in the present study new PCM is being introduced which has better heat storage capacity than paraffin wax. To analyse the thermal behaviours of Myristic acid a simple and economical experimental setup has been designed which consists of solar parabolic concentrator, hot water bath, water pump, test section, insulation boxes, T type thermocouple, and Data acquisition system. In the experiment conducted, the water which gets heated due the solar parabolic concentrator charges the Myristic acid in the test section and once the Myristic acid gets fully charged it is taken out and kept in the insulation box. Charging and discharging period analysis were conducted and it is found that Myristic acid took only 2hrs 25 min for complete charging while it took 8hrs for a temperature drop of 80C from an initial temperature of 650C. Thus Myristic acid is very promising as a PCM in a thermal energy storage system

Keywords: Phase Change Materials, Chagrining, Discharging, Storage period