Use of phase change material (PCM) for the improvement of thermal performance of cold storage

The project deals with the development of cold storage facility for improvement of its thermal performance by application of polyethylene glycol 400 (PEG400) as a Phase change material (PCM). PCM are the materials which generally have low melting point and they change their phase by absorbing the latent heat from the system so as to maintain the temperature of system. Present study was done to determine the rise in the temperature of air inside the cold space in the situations like frequent door openings and electrical power failures. The main aim of this project was to observe the lowering in the rise of temperature when there is PCM used inside the cold space of the cold storage. The experimental result showed that with the application of PCM temperature maintained inside the cold space was 1-4 °C lower than without PCM in case of frequent door openings. And also in case of electrical power failures with the use of PCM, temperature maintained was 1-4.5 °C lower than without application of PCM. The maximum power savings observed in case of door openings was 1021.88 kJ/h when the door was opened 3 times for 10 seconds with an interval of 20 minutes each and for electrical power failure for 1 hour the power saved was 3.115 kJ/h which was higher than the rate of energy absorbed by PCM in other cases.