Materials Selection for Thermal Energy Storage Applications—Case Studies

To accomplish their duties, engineers need information, and this must be easily accessible, so they can readily choose among all the possibilities they can find to fit to a specific application. To build a thermal energy storage system, engineers always wonder which the best storage material they can find. The answer always depends on several factors. In the present chapter, the materials selection methodology is introduced to proceed for an optimal material selection for a certain application in thermal energy storage systems. Several case studies using this methodology are explained for different thermal energy storage applications: long term and short term sensible heat thermal energy storage, and phase change materials (PCM) for latent heat thermal energy storage for low temperature applications (buildings sector), and high temperature applications (concentrated solar power plants or CSP).