(568c) Use of Oat Hulls for Adsorption Based Thermal Energy Storage Applications

Thermal energy storage applications by adsorption have attracted a lot of attention recently from researchers since it is a clean technology that will promote the use of renewable sources of energy. Different classes of adsorbent materials have been tested for thermal energy storage applications in the literature. However, among those, biomass is catching more attention due to its sustainable and renewable characteristics. Oat hulls have been used in generating electricity and were found to be very promising and cheap. On the other hand, salt hydrates based composites have been attractive options for space heating and domestic hot water applications, due to their high energy density values, their optimal operating temperature ranges and lack of toxic chemicals. This paper focuses on the thermal energy storage properties of oat hulls based composite adsorbents with salt hydrates. The composites were prepared and tested for structural characterization by Scanning Electron Microscopy. Thermal energy storage properties of these composites were measured by a lab scale setup for moisture adsorption from air at different relative humidities. The pure oat hulls have been observed to be stable for multiple cycles with 46 kWh/m³ of energy storage density at 50% Relative Humidity at the inlet after a regeneration temperature of 80^oC.