3D Unsteady CFD Simulations of Heat and Mass Transfer

with Chemical Reaction of Seasonal Solar Thermochemical

Heat Storage System for Buildings
Wahiba Yaïci and Evgueniy Entchev
CanmetENERGY Research Centre, Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa (ON), K1A 1M1 Canada
Introduction Model Set-up
Solar energy storage has been an extensive research topic among the several thermal energy applications The Navier-Stokes and energy equations in three-dimensional form were used to solve for the
over the past three decades. Thermal energy storage (TES) systems in general, improve the energy transient hydrodynamic, reacting and thermal fields. Therefore, the resulting governing equations
efficiency of systems and sustainability of buildings by reducing the mismatch between supply and can be written as follows:
demand, and can substantially increase the solar fraction. They expand the use of solar collectors and Energy balance:
result in enhanced solar coverage of the space heating demand.

TES systems using thermochemical materials are particularly attractive and provide a high energy storage Mass balance:
density at a constant temperature. Chemical energy storage has unique advantages of high energy
storage and low heat losses over other storage technologies and is considered as the most promising
alternative.

The principle of chemical reaction is based on the reversible reaction between two substances, for instance
a solid such a salt and a gas or water vapour, with endothermic decomposition (charging mode in
summer), and exothermic synthesis (discharging mode in winter) processes. Chemical kinetics [3-5]:

Heat, mass transfer and momentum transport processes are coupled with chemical reactions in a
thermochemical heat storage system. The endothermic and exothermic reactions in a chemical reactor in
closed or open system are strongly integrated by heat transfer from adjacent heat exchanger.
The above Equations are solved together with an energy balance in unsteady 3D.

In this investigation, a three-dimensional unsteady CFD model of a solid/gas thermochemical porous Table 1. Thermophysical properties of heat storage system used in this work
reactive bed with a plate-fin heat exchanger operating in a close system is developed to simulate and
analyse the thermal synthesis of the exothermic hydration reaction of pure salt during the discharging
process for seasonal heat storage in building application.

Operating Principles
Fig. 1 illustrates the operating principles of a thermochemical heat storage system using solid-gas chemical
reaction. The heat exchanger that is used in dissociation mode as a condenser is the same, which is used
in synthesis mode as an evaporator. Simulation Results

Fig. 3. Reaction advancement profiles of the Fig. 4. 3D view of the reactive spatial view of the reactor
reactive porous bed reactor during discharging temperature during discharging at 0.5 h and 14 h

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of a thermochemical heat storage system [1]

Model Geometry
Figs. 2a,b illustrate the geometric models of the thermochemical heat storage (TCHS) reactor based on
MgCl2・2H2O for the synthesis (hydration) mode for discharge process for the validation case and the study. Fig. 5. Reaction advancement profiles of the Fig. 6. Reaction advancement profiles of the reactive
3D unsteady models were built in the CFD commercial software COMSOL. The unsteady simulations were C reactive porous bed reactor during discharging porous bed reactor during discharging for different
run for a time period, which corresponds to the time required to complete the chemical reaction in the TCHS thermal conductivities
reactor. This corresponds to a residence time of 14 hours and a time step of 20 s, which was considered to
be acceptable in terms of accuracy and efficiency.
Conclusion
In this investigation, a three-dimensional unsteady CFD model of a solid/gas thermochemical porous
reactive bed with a plate-fin heat exchanger operating in a close system is developed to simulate and
analyse the thermal synthesis of the exothermic hydration reaction of pure salt during the discharging
process. Validation of the unsteady reacting flow computation results with data found in the literature
has shown a good agreement. Different temporal and spatial dimensional distribution maps of
temperatures, velocities and reaction advancements have been obtained. The effect of the reactive
bed thermal conductivity on the performance of the system has shown small increase in the system
performance for thermal conductivities up to 50 W/m.K. The CFD model may serve as a valuable
design tool for future simulation and optimisation of TCHS for both charge and discharge modes.

Fig. 2. Reactor geometry with 2D asymmetric view for the : (a) validation case [2] and (b) the simulated reactor References
[1] K.E. N’Tsoukpoe, N. Mazet, P. Neveu, The concept of cascade thermochemical storage based on multimaterial system for household
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Acknowledgement: Funding for this work was provided by Natural Resources Canada through [2] A. Fopah-Lele, F. Kuznik, T. Osterland, W.K.L. Ruck, Thermal synthesis of a thermochemical heat storage with heat exchanger optimization,
Applied Thermal Engineering 101 (2016) 669–677.
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Energy, 72 (2014) 702–16.
[4] H.B. Lu, N. Mazet, B. Spinner, Modelling of gas-solid reaction—coupling of heat and mass transfer with chemical reaction, Chemical
Engineering Science, 51 (1996) 3829–3845.
[5] N. Mazet, M. Amouroux, B. Spinner, Analysis and experimental study of the transformation of a non-isothermal solid/gas reacting medium.
Chemical Engineering Communications 99 (1991) 155–74.

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the 2018 COMSOL Conference in Boston