Renewable Thermal Energy Storage in Polymer Encapsulated Phase-Change Materials: A Comprehensive Overview

An urgent need to resolve the unwanted climatic change and transition to renewable energy resources has driven significant development and research in advancing renewable energy storage systems. Energy storing approaches aid in efficiently utilizing renewable resources, maintaining their consistency, and having a reliable energy supply. This book chapter contributes significantly to the topic of renewable energy storage. It provides a detailed overview of thermal energy storage (TES) systems based on phase-change materials (PCMs), emphasizing their critical role in storing and releasing latent heat. Moreover, different types of PCMs and their selection criteria for electricity generation are also described. Meanwhile, the role of polymer in thermal energy storage systems is systematically presented in this chapter. Usages of PCM trapped polymer composites and their different fabrication methods including micro/nanoencapsulation by physical/chemical methods, porous polymeric framework, and shape-stabilization strategy are also discussed in detail. In addition, this chapter covers the wide application of PCMs based systems in solar energy storage including solar thermophotovoltaics, waste heat recovery (stationary waste heat recovery and portable waste heat recovery), solar thermoelectric generators, concentrated solar power plants (CSP) and energy conservation in buildings.