Deep Eutectic Solvents as Phase Change Materials in Solar Thermal Power Plants: Energy and Exergy Analyses

Nowadays, producing energy from solar thermal power plants based on organic Rankine cycles coupled with phase change material has attracted the attention of researchers. Obviously, in such solar plants, the physical properties of the utilized phase change material (PCM) play important roles in the amounts of generated power and the efficiencies of the plant. Therefore, to choose the best PCM, various factors must be taken into account. In addition, considering the physical properties of the candidate PCM, the issue of environmental sustainability should also be considered when making the selection. Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) are novel green solvents, which, in addition to having various favorable characteristics, are environmentally sustainable. Accordingly, in this work, the feasibility of using seven different deep eutectic solvents as the PCMs of solar thermal power plants with organic Rankine cycles was investigated. By applying exergy and energy analyses, the performances of each were compared to paraffin, which is a conventional PCM. According to the achieved results, most of the investigated DES cycles produce more power than the conventional cycle using paraffin as its PCM. Furthermore, lower amounts of the PCM are required when paraffin is replaced by a DES at the same operational conditions.

Automated summary

Producing energy from solar thermal power plants using organic Rankine cycles coupled with phase change material is a topic of interest for researchers. This study investigated the feasibility of using deep eutectic solvents as phase change materials in these plants, and found that they can generate more power and require less material compared to traditional paraffin PCM.