Thermochemical energy storage using a closed cycle (ThermoStore)

作为到2050年基本实现净零碳排放的努力的一部分，英国政府在2019年3月宣布了一项新计划，在2025年后禁止在新房子里使用燃气锅炉。这是基于这样一个事实，根据气候变化委员会的数据，2012年英国住宅建筑排放的温室气体约占总排放量的25%，其中55%直接来自气体。该委员会建议，到2025年，建筑物的直接排放量在2007年的基础上减少36%，到2030年减少53%。这导致了对替代低碳或零碳供暖技术的迫切需求。太阳能热能技术似乎是满足这一需求的主要选择，但有一个共同的缺点，即太阳能产热量与建筑物供暖需求之间的时间不匹配。季节性储存太阳能是解决冬季供暖需求和夏季太阳能产热量不匹配的重要途径。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，而且储热损失可以忽略不计。该项目旨在研究一种新型的太阳能驱动热化学储能系统，该系统采用了闭式空气循环、压力控制、嵌入式内部供热/制冷、中空聚合物纤维换热器和集成除湿/蒸发冷却等几种创新设计。拟议的系统旨在解决典型的热化学能量存储系统所遇到的几个缺点，并将利用低温太阳能通过在略高温度下对空气流动进行增湿来增强热释放过程。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研究的基础上。该系统的开发具有减少空间采暖和热水中化石能源使用的潜力。这种技术的实施将使英国能够大幅提高太阳能的利用率，并实现供暖领域的脱碳目标。该项目将向国内消费者、房屋建筑商、行业和地方当局展示可再生能源在不增加成本的情况下供暖建筑物的可行性。该项目还将为英国各行业提供机会，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.