Project Details

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Continuous flow calorimeter

Company: Echogen Power Systems (DE), Inc.

Major(s):
Primary: EGEE
Secondary: ME
Optional: EE

Non-Disclosure Agreement: NO

Intellectual Property: YES

Echogen is developing a long duration energy storage technology called Pumped Thermal Energy Storage (PTES). A critical component of the system is a low-temperature thermal reservoir (LTR) that provides energy to a heat pump during the charging process and receives that energy back during power generation. The system that Echogen is developing uses an innovative ice/water slurry (IWS) as the LTR. During charging, water is supercooled to -2°C or lower, and then is triggered to form an ice/water mixture, or slurry. One of the challenges in the testing, operation and control of this system is the measurement of the thermal capacity of the IWS. The constant temperature nature of the two-phase slurry precludes the direct use of temperature measurements for thermal capacity measurement, and density instruments lack the precision and sensitivity to accurately measure the solid fraction of the slurry to infer its thermal capacity. Echogen has conceived a device that will use principles of heat transfer and calorimetry to measure the thermal capacity of a sampled IWS. The team will be tasked with developing this concept to a bench-scale laboratory prototype. They will be responsible for the mechanical, electrical and instrumentation design of the prototype, and the development of a test system that enables verification and validation of the prototype performance. At the conclusion of the program, we expect to have a working, tested and validated prototype unit that can be used in a laboratory environment. For extra credit, the team can explore and develop a plan for commercialization of the calorimeter for industrial uses.