Immobile thermochemical heat accumulator on a pilot plant scale: As part of the BMWi project CWS, a thermochemical heat accumulator on a pilot plant scale was set up at DLR in Cologne. The reactor has a thermal power of up to 10 kW and a capacity of 8 kWh of chemically stored energy (corresponds to approx. 22 kg Ca(OH)2).
Credit: DLR..
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Research Area Management: Dr. Marc Linder
The research area „Thermochemical Systems“ focuses on reversible gas-solid reactions and their application in the fields of energy storage and conversion. Different reaction systems utilizing hydrogen, oxygen or water vapor as gaseous reactants are investigated for applications in industrial processes, solar power plants as well as for mobile applications. The main focus of the research area is on the realization of innovative storage and reactor concepts and their demonstration in laboratory or pilot plant scale.
Thermochemical Storage of Heat
Since the thermal energy is chemically stored as heat of reaction, this storage technology offers several advantages such as:
Depending on the reaction system, the thermochemical storage can be used in a wide temperature range - starting from below room temperature up to 1000 °C.
Heat transformation
Due to the pressure dependency of gas-solid reactions, thermochemical systems can also be used to transform heat. In this case the temperature of the discharging process can be higher than the temperature necessary for the charging process which is especially interesting for the thermal upgrade of industrial waste heat.
Solid State Hydrogen Storage
The principle of solid state hydrogen storage is based on a chemical bonding between the hydrogen gas and a solid material. Therefore, solid state hydrogen offers the possibility to safely store hydrogen at low pressures with high storage densities. Depending on the storage material, the chemical reaction can also be used for other applications such as thermal energy storage or gas separation.
Automotive thermal management
Gas-solid reactions also offer the possibility to separate the reactants easily. Therefore, the thermochemical storage is principally loss-free and its heat release controllable. In combination with high storage and power densities, thermochemical systems can therefore offer interesting applications in the context of automotive thermal management.