Performance enhancement in latent heat thermal storage system: A review

Phase change material (PCM) based latent heat thermal storage (LHTS) systems offer a challenging option to be employed as an effective energy storage and retrieval device. The performance of LHTS systems is limited by the poor thermal conductivity of PCMs employed. Successful large-scale utilization of LHTS systems thus depends on the extent to which the performance can be improved. A great deal of work both experimental and theoretical on different performance enhancement techniques has been reported in the literature. This paper reviews the implementation of those techniques in different configurations of LHTS systems. The influence of enhancement techniques on the thermal response of the PCM in terms of phase change rate and amount of latent heat stored/retrieved has been addressed as a main aspect. Issues related to mathematical modeling of LHTS systems employing enhancement techniques are also discussed.