CHARACTERIZATION OF ERYTHRITOL AS A PHASE CHANGE MATERIAL

Storage of solar energy is a challenging task and has huge attention in recent years. Storage of thermal energy in the form of latent heat with the help of PCMs (Phase change materials) shows many attractive features of high energy to density and process of storage is isothermal in nature in comparison with other heat storage methods. Plenty of materials which have the characteristics of changing its phase during the process of heating and cooling are available and enormous information is published widely on the storage systems which stores heat in the form of latent. However it is still difficult to find such material for different applications at different range of temperature. This paper was presented after exhaustive literature study on characteristics of erythritol as a low temperature PCM. This paper makes convenient for the readers to know about characteristics of erythritol as a PCM for low temperature range application. In addition to this, a new design of solar heat energy storage unit, for the utilisation of thermal energy during off