Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan, Vol.34, No.3, 376-382, 2001
Relaxation of supercooling of erythritol for latent heat storage
The present paper shows experimental results on physical methods for supercooling relaxation of erythritol as a phase change material. Solidification behavior of erythritol melt was observed under the experimental conditions using the following 3 energy loadings: 1) ultrasonic irradiation, 2) stirring with seeding, and 3) agitation by bubbling. The obtained results have shown that supercooling relaxation of erythritol during its solidification is possible using any of the 3 cases for choosing energy loading, and that ultrasonic irradiation is most effective among the 3 cases. The effectiveness of ultrasonic irradiation was found to be dependent on ultrasonic power and on the melt's temperature at which irradiation was initiated. In the case of stirring, the relaxation effect was improved with a small amount of crystals seeded at about its melting temperature. Effective relaxation was also obtained by agitating erythritol melt by bubbling of N-2 gas at room temperature compared with pre-heated gas.