DESIGN AND INDUSTRIAL ELABORATION OF THERMAL ENERGY STORAGE UNITS MADE OF RECYCLED VITRIFIED INDUSTRIAL WASTES

摘要

New sensible heat storage materials for CSP (Concentrated Solar Power-plant) made of recycled ceramics from vitrified asbestos containing wastes are considered. Up to now, those inert ceramics are only used for road construction and the raw vitrified product is cooled industrially in cast-iron ingot mould without any particular care. Nevertheless, all obtained industrial glass-ceramic ingots present similar macro and micro structures. The present work is first focused on macro and micro structural properties of those materials related to cooling conditions and secondly on a comprehensive model of the current industrial cooling step. One of the major advantages of this storage material is the possibility to shape it directly at the outlet of the vitrification process to produce the thermal storage elements. Therefore, various geometries of the storage material could be obtained leading to a possible optimization of heat transfer performances and reduction in pressure drop. On the basis of the relationship between cooling conditions and properties, the cooling protocol needed to manufacture efficient thermal storage modules can be considered.