• Project state

  Ongoing

• Type of project

  Competitive project

• Begin date

  15 March 2021

• End date

  15 February 2024

The mismatch of renewable energy available in summer and the heat demand in winter can be solved by compact seasonal thermal energy storage. The engineering of additive manufactured ceramic structures is proposed to improve the system efficiency and boost the competitiveness of this technology. Renewable thermal energy for building heating during winter in Switzerland can be provided by solar thermal energy (mainly collected in summer) and seasonal storage. Concerning this last system, an interesting approach is the sorption storage with a thermochemical system. The reaction zone is the heart of the system with an heat and mass exchangers (HMX) including an absorber-desorber (A-D) unit. An optimized A-D unit will not only allow decreasing the costs and the volume of the HMX but also enables to fully exploit the thermochemical potential of the sorbent-sorbate pair. The performances of the whole storage system will significantly improve. Thus, a higher sorbent concentration difference between the inlet and the outlet of the A-D unit will require a lower amount of sorbent. This leads to a lower system volume and cost compared to conventional systems. The HMX tubes of the system will be surrounded by new additive manufactured ceramic structures, developed in the HEXCER project to increase power and efficiency. Funded by Innosuisse application 50850.1 IP-EE Partners: HSR Hochschule Rapperswil