Development of a thermally enhanced nano-material for ground energy storage

瑞尔森大学、多伦多大学和麦克马斯特大学的研究人员正在与麦克利蒙特和拉克岩土工程工程师合作，开发一种新的可持续储热技术，以解决阻碍加拿大以有意义的方式采用地质交换的主要挑战。将开发一种基于建筑浆料的创新储热介质，并将其用作地下储热系统，与地源热泵相结合，提供高性能的建筑供暖和制冷。这种新的、廉价的技术将能够有效地与太阳能供暖相结合，使其与天然气相比更具成本竞争力，从而导致建筑行业的采用率提高和二氧化碳排放量大幅减少。多伦多大学的纳米材料专家将开发和测试用于地下储存介质的新型纳米工程膨润土材料。麦克马斯特大学的土木工程研究人员将在实验室规模的深地面模拟器中测试这些材料的传热和储热特性。瑞尔森大学的机械工程研究人员将建立该系统的技术功能和经济可行性的计算机模型。该团队将期待与公司合作伙伴在他们的测试地点进行全面实施，以获取数据，验证模型，并了解该技术的技术和经济可行性。

Researchers at Ryerson University, the University of Toronto, and McMaster University are collaborating with McClymont and Rak geotechnical engineers to develop a new sustainable thermal storage technology that addresses the main challenges that have prevented geoexchange adoption in a meaningful way in Canada. An innovative thermal storage medium, based on a construction slurry will be developed and used as an underground thermal storage system, coupled to a ground source heat pump, to provide high-performance building heating and cooling. This new, inexpensive technology will be able to be effectively integrated withsolar heating, making it more cost competitive with natural gas, leading to increased adoption and considerableCO2 emissions reduction in the building sector.Nano-material experts at the University of Toronto will be developing and testing new nano-engineered bentonite materials for use in the underground storage medium. Civil engineering researchers at McMaster University will be testing the heat transfer and thermal storage characteristics of those materials in a laboratory scale deep ground emulator. Mechanical engineering researchers at Ryerson will be building computer models of the technical functionality and economic feasibility of the system. The team will look forward to full scale implementation with the company partner at their testing site, for data acquisition, model validation, and togain an understanding of the technical and economic feasibility of the technology.