Use of phase change materials on an adsorbed carbon dioxide storage system

This paper studies the thermal effect resulting from the adsorption of carbon dioxide (CO2) on both charge and discharge on an absorbed storage system using phase change materials (PCM) as heat exchanger. A 0.16 m3 tank filled with granulated activated carbon was used, where 360 PCM spheres (40 mm diameter) were placed inside. Adsorption and desorption temperatures, together with CO2 discharge amount were recorded experimentally from 0.8 to 3.0 MPa adsorption pressure. Results shown that experimental temperature profiles are well contrasted with numerical simulation of the process obtained using STAR CCM+ software. It was observed that it is possible to mitigate temperature fluctuation, rising adsorption and decreasing desorption, as well as increase the amount of desorbed CO2, with the use of PCM spheres. The best discharged amount of desorbed CO2 was 8952 L at 3.0 MPa using PCM spheres on carbon bed.