State of the art on gas-solid thermochemical energy storage systems and reactors for building applications

Thermal energy storage (TES) is moving towards thermochemical materials (TCM) which present attractive advantages compared to sensible and phase change materials. Nevertheless, TCM are more complex to characterize at lab scale and also the implied technology, which belongs to the chemical engineering field, needs to be contextualized in the TES field. System configurations for thermochemical energy storage are being divided into open/ closed storage system and separate/integrated reactor system. Reactors, which are the core of the system, are the focus of this paper. Different gas-solid thermochemical and sorption reactors for building applications are reviewed from lab to pilot plant scale, from 0.015 to 7850 dm(3). Fixed bed reactors are the most used ones. Mainly, mass transfer is limiting to achieve the expected energy density. The geometry of the reactor and contact flow pattern between phases are key parameters for a better performance. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.