Thermal performance analysis of a metal hydride reactor encircled by a phase change material sandwich bed

Phase change material (PCM) is integrated with a metal hydride (MH) storage reactor to enhance its performance. The main function of the PCM is to store the heat released by the MH reactor during the hydrogenation process and reuse it later during the dehydrogenation process. In such a system, the exothermic/endothermic reactions are highly dependent on the heat transfer rate between the MH reactor and the PCM bed. To increase the heat transfer rate, a new configuration of the MH-PCM storage system is proposed. The new configuration consists of an MH reactor encircled by a cylindrical sandwich bed packed with PCM. The results indicate that the proposed configuration of the MH-PCM system improved the heat transfer rate which accordingly reduced the time duration of the hydrogenation and dehydrogenation processes by 81.5% and 73%, respectively, compared to a conventional MH-PCM system that includes only a single PCM bed.