IN BRIEF
• Tower Cold Chain, Theale, England, has added PCM plates to its on-board catering containers, eliminating the need for dry ice. The passive Advanced Insulated Boxes are designed to store perishable food, beverages and ice on passenger planes and trains. The containers can sustain temperatures at 5°C and below 0°C for up to 24 hours. “Dry ice is considered a hazardous material when transported and therefore requires strict compliance and regulatory training,” said Suzanne Hagley, business development manager. “Tower’s passive, on-board catering containers eliminate the need for such complexities, enabling airlines and train operators to carry food without compromising safety standards or creating dedicated supply chain networks at each station.”
• The extended abstract submission period for Enerstock 2024 opens on July 1. The energy storage conference, which is organized every three years by the IEA Energy Storage Technology Collaboration Program, will be held June 5-7, 2024, in Lyon, France. The conference will focus on innovative and disruptive ideas that will help decarbonize the global economy. Among the topics: thermal energy storage, electrical energy storage, chemical energy storage and storage materials and components.
• Phase Change Solutions, Asheboro, N.C., and DIC Corp., a Japanese chemical company, have announced a strategic partnership for commercializing thermal management solutions for the building and construction industry in Japan.
• Karolina Matuszek, a lecturer at Monash University, Australia, has been awarded $430,000 AUD to develop a new generation of phase change materials to advance the technology of thermal energy storage and provide cheap energy from zero-carbon sources in the form of heat and electricity. The Early Career Industry Fellowship is funded by the Australian Research Council.
• Kenyan startup Baridi is partnering with Inficold of India to incorporate thermal storage technology in Baridi’s solar cold room units. Baridi said the technology is replacing lithium-ion batteries in the units. In a LinkedIn post, Baridi wrote: “In true BARIDI nature, the 5MT solar-powered cold room was assembled in Kenya, by Kenyan youths and is intended to provide Cooling-as-a-Service to 1,000 vendors within Nairobi’s highest-volume wholesale market.”
• Sophia Sonnert is among 13 Massachusetts Institute of Technology undergraduates, graduate students and alumni selected for 2023-2024 Fulbright fellowships. Sonnert, who graduates this year with a degree in mechanical engineering, will use her year-long grant at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Switzerland. She will create new equipment to observe salt segregation to advance the understanding of salt hydrates as a phase change material for thermal energy storage. Before starting her Fulbright fellowship, she will conduct droplet sorting research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.
• Italian startup i-TES has completed a new 1.4 million euro funding round. The company, operating within the University of Turin’s 2i3T business incubator, is developing thermal storage batteries with phase change materials and thermochemical materials. The joint investment effort is led by EUREKA! Venture SGR.
• University of Edinburgh spin-out Exergy3 has been awarded a grant by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero for a trial at a whisky distillery. Exergy3 says its “decarbonisation machine” can replace up to 100% of the fossil fuels currently used in high-temperature industrial processes. The modular energy storage system takes excess renewable energy from the national grid and stores it at temperatures of up to 1200C. The £3.6 million grant will help pay for installation of the technology at the Annandale Distillery in Dumfries and Galloway.
• Sunamp Ltd. founders Susan Lang-Bissell and Andrew Bissell visited Buckingham Palace in June to receive the King’s Award for Innovation from King Charles. In a LinkedIn post, Bissell wrote: “It was fun. Met a number of other amazing exporters and innovators. And HRH the King. Which was nice. On a serious note: the importance of the fight against #climatechange was clear and evident across all key conversations in the room.”
• Sunamp Ltd. is partnering with Trianco, a U.K. heating and hot water equipment vendor, to introduce ActivAir Plus, a product that pairs Sunamp’s Thermino heat battery with Trianco’s ActivAir heat pump. “Thanks to the compact size of the heat battery and reduced number of components,” Sunamp says, “the ActivAir Plus package is easy to handle and arrives on one single pallet, significantly reducing packaging waste and simplifying logistics. It offers installers, landlords and homeowners a one-stop-shop and one delivery solution for transitioning to renewable heating systems.”
• Registration is open for the 3rd edition of the Summer School on Latent Thermal Energy Storage. The program, to be held Sept. 4-8 at the University of Padova, Italy, will focus on the role of LTES on decarbonization. Jörg Worlitschek, Anastasia Stamatiou and Simone Mancin are coordinating the program, which is designed to provide young scientists in industry and academia an opportunity to learn from leading LTES experts. Professor Luiza Cabeza of the University of Lleida, Spain, will deliver a lecture on performance indicators for LTES. The registration fee is 790 euros for Ph.D. students, with higher fees for academic and industrial staff. The registration deadline is July 15.
JOBS
• Do you have Python coding skills and a Ph.D. in thermal energy storage or a related field? Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, is seeking candidates to help develop an open-source framework to assess the levelized cost of energy and carbon emission reduction costs of heat storage in geothermal reservoirs. The application deadline is July 7.
• The Global Energy Interconnection Research Institute Europe, Berlin, has an opening for a thermal energy storage research engineer. The engineer will play a leading role in the research and development of energy storage systems. Requirements include a master’s degree in engineering thermal physics, process engineering, chemical engineering or comparable qualification.
• Pluss Advanced Technologies Ltd., Gurugram, India, has an opening for a marketing communications specialist. The successful candidate will “own and drive the entire digital marketing strategy and execution.”
PATENTS
Composite phase change material
U.S. patent application 20230183539 (applicant Samit Jain, Gurgaon, India):
“The present disclosure is a composite phase change material and its method of preparation thereof. The composite phase change material includes a phase change material present in an amount of 50%-80% by weight. The composite phase change material further includes a thermally conductive material present in an amount of 10%-30% by weight. The composite phase change material further includes a flame retardant present in an amount of 0%-10% by weight. The composite phase change material further includes a polymer present in an amount of 0%-15% by weight.”
U.S. patent application 20230190518 (applicant Charles Katrycz and Katherine Porter, California):
“A device and method for a wearable heat pack is presented. The heat pack provides a therapeutic application of heat or cold to a user using phase-change material to provide a desired temperature and is made of a soft and flexible material that is comfortable and pleasant to use, but is strong enough to be reused multiple times. The heat pack device includes a sealed silicone envelope. An infill is contained in the envelope and includes a phase-change material for providing a temperature range over a period of time. The method includes heating the heat pack device, placing the heat pack device in a pocket of a garment, and placing the garment on a user to position the heat pack device in contact with the user, wherein the heat pack device includes a phase change material and further wherein the heating creates a phase-change of the phase-change material.”
More U.S. patent applications:
Mobile thermal energy storage (Nostromo Ltd., Even-Yehuda, Israel) | Thermal battery management system (Green Cubes Technology LLC, Kokomo, Indiana) | Heat exchanger device comprising a phase change material (Edge Innovation Aveiro Unipessoal Lda, Aveiro, Portugal)
RESEARCH ROUNDUP
From Journal of Energy Storage:
• Thermal energy storage via waste heat from finned heater by using different phase change materials in a closed space
• Heating efficiency enhanced by combination of phase change materials and activated carbon for dry floor heating system
• Numerical investigation and optimization of macro-encapsulated phase change material capsules in building roof slab
• Optimization strategies of microencapsulated phase change materials for thermal energy storage
• Hourly analysis of temperature and heat gain reduction for building envelope-compacted phase change material in extremely hot conditions
From iScience:
• Stabilization of low-cost phase change materials for thermal energy storage applications
From World Conference on Timber Engineering:
• Alcohols as a phase change material with excellent thermal storage properties in buildings [pdf]
From Applied Thermal Engineering:
• Preparation and performance improvement of phase change materials with Skin-Flesh structure inspired by loofah
• Thermal management analysis of new liquid cooling of a battery system based on phase change material and thermoelectric cooler
From Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science:
From Energy and Buildings:
From AIP Conference Proceedings:
From ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces:
• Controlled Latent Heat Phase-Change Microcapsules for Temperature Regulation
From Energy Conversion and Management:
From Materials Today: Proceedings:
From International Journal of Thermofluids:
From Journal of Cleaner Production:
From Journal of Food Process Engineering:
• Low-cost inorganic phase change material improves the storage conditions of on-farm storage chamber
From Polymer Reviews:
• Recent Progress in PEG-Based Composite Phase Change Materials
From Environmental Progress and Sustainable Energy:
From Energy Technology:
From Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering:
• Bio-based composite as phase change material including spent coffee grounds and beeswax paraffin
NETWORKING
Connect with PCM experts and industry leaders on LinkedIn
More than 1,780 people have joined a LinkedIn group devoted to the discussion of phase change material and thermal energy storage. You are invited to join the Phase Change Matters group and connect with PCM and TES experts from around the world.
This month we welcome Mar Alonso Martínez, professor at the University of Oviedo, Gijón, Spain; Gary Walters, engineering project manager for medical devices, Corbitec LLC, San Diego, Calif.; Tim Zgraggen, co-founder, SeasonCell, Horw, Switzerland; and Gautier Moulin, senior asset manager at Total Eren, Oslo, Norway.
NEWS TIPS
Does your company, agency or university have a job opening, new research, new product or other news you’d like to share? I would love to hear from you. Please contact newsletter editor Ben Welter at benedict.welter@gmail.com.
A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR
This newsletter is made possible through the generous support of the RAL Quality Association PCM and the members listed below. To learn more about the association, including membership benefits, please contact Stefan Thomann, executive director, at pcm@kellencompany.com.
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