Thermochemical energy storage using a closed cycle (ThermoStore)

作为到2050年实现基本净零碳排放的努力的一部分，英国政府于2019年3月宣布了一项新计划，即在2025年后禁止在新房屋中使用燃气锅炉。这是基于这样一个事实：根据气候变化委员会的数据，2012年，住宅建筑占英国温室气体排放总量的25%左右，其中55%直接来自天然气。委员会建议到2025年直接减排36%，到2030年直接减排53%。这导致了对替代低碳或零碳加热技术的迫切需求。太阳能热技术似乎是满足这一需求的主要选择，但它有一个共同的缺点，那就是太阳能产热和建筑物供暖需求之间的时间不匹配。季节性太阳能蓄热是解决冬季供暖需求与夏季太阳能产热不匹配的重要途径。在现有的三种主要储能技术中，热化学储能的能量密度比传统的显热和潜热储能高出数倍，并且储能热损失可以忽略不计。该项目旨在研究一种新的太阳能驱动热化学储能系统，该系统采用了几种创新设计，如封闭空气回路、压力控制、嵌入式内部加热/冷却、中空聚合物纤维热交换器和集成除湿/蒸发冷却。所提出的系统旨在解决典型热化学储能系统所经历的几个缺点，并且还将使用低温太阳能通过在稍高的温度下加湿气流来增强热量释放排出过程。该项目建立在我们最近对复合盐基作为热化学储能材料的设计和制造的研究基础上。该系统的开发具有减少空间供暖和热水使用化石能源的潜力。实施这种技术将使英国大大提高其太阳能的利用率，并实现供暖脱碳的目标。该项目将向国内消费者、房屋建筑商、工业和地方当局证明，在不增加成本的情况下，利用可再生能源为建筑物供暖的实用性。该项目还将为英国工业提供一个机会，率先开发一种新的先进太阳能蓄热技术。

As part of its effort to commit essentially net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the UK Government announced a new plan in March 2019 to ban gas boilers in new houses after 2025. This is based on a fact that residential buildings accounted for about 25% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2012, of which 55% were directly from gas, according to the Committee on Climate Change. The Committee advised direct emission reductions of 36% by 2025 and 53% by 2030 from 2007 levels in buildings. This has led to an imminent demand for replacement low or zero carbon heating technologies.Solar thermal technology appears a primary option to meet this demand, but possesses a common drawback, that is the temporal mismatch between solar heat production and heating demand in buildings. Seasonal storage of solar heat is an essential way to address the mismatch between heating demand in winter and solar heat production in summer. Of the three main technologies available, energy density of thermochemical energy storage is superior to conventional sensible and latent heat storage by several-fold factor and has a further advantage of negligible storage heat loss.The proposed project is aimed to investigate a new solar driven thermochemical energy storage system using several innovative designs such as closed air loop, pressure control, embedded internal heating/cooling, hollow polymer fibre heat exchanger, and integrated dehumidification/evaporative cooling. The proposed system has been devised to address several drawbacks experienced by typical thermochemical energy storage systems and will also use low temperature solar heat to enhance the heat release discharging process by humidifying air flow at a slightly higher temperature. The project is built on our recent research on the design and fabrication of composite salt-in-matrix as thermochemical energy storage materials.Development of the proposed system has the potential of reducing fossil energy usage in space heating and hot water. Implementation of such technology would allow the UK to greatly increase its utilisation of solar energy and achieve the target of decarbonisation in heating. This project will demonstrate to domestic consumers, house builders, industry and local authorities the practicality of heating buildings by renewable energy without increasing costs. The project will also provide an opportunity for UK industries to pioneer the development of a new advanced solar heat storage technology.