Phase change material selection for energy storage units using a simple and effective decision-making method

Abstract

This study provides a simple and effective decision-making method to choose the best phase-change material for different energy storage applications. Three case studies are provided to demonstrate the proposed decision-making method. The first case study addresses the problem of best phase-change material selection for a domestic water heating latent heat storage system by considering 15 different phase-change materials and 8 selection attributes; the second case study addresses the problem of selecting the best phase-change material for a triple tube heat exchanger unit by considering 12 different phase-change materials and 5 selection attributes; the third case study addresses the problem of best phase-change material selection for latent heat thermal energy storage within the walls of Trombe to enhance performance considering 11 phase-change materials and 4 selection attributes. The results of the proposed decision-making method are compared with those of other well-known multi-attribute decision-making methods. The proposed method is shown to be simple to implement, providing a logical way for allocating weights to the selection attributes and adaptable to phase-change material selection problems in different energy storage contexts.