Certain sugar alcohols can be melted and then cooled far below their freezing point without turning solid, holding the stored heat in place until something prompts them to crystallise.
A new study identifies a blend that holds this state reliably and releases its heat on demand, offering a practical route to thermal storage for low-carbon heating.
Key benefits:
- A blend of 75% erythritol and 25% xylitol stores around 288 kJ of heat per kilogram and remains stable in its supercooled state between 50 ℃ and 90 ℃
- Four triggering methods were compared, with mechanical agitation at 60 ℃ proving the most effective, ahead of electrode activation, seeding and thermoelectric cooling
- The result behaves as a thermal battery, charged when energy is cheap or abundant and discharged only when heat is actually required
This article was published in the WSSET affiliate journal, Green Technology & Innovation. For more information on our affiliate journals visit: wsset.org/journals
Read the full paper here: https://gtijournal.com/index.php/gti/article/view/1001/770