Experimental measurements of thermal properties of high-temperature refractory materials used for thermal energy storage

This paper builds on studies conducted on thermal energy storage (TES) systems that were built as a part of the work performed for a DOE-funded SunShot project titled “High Temperature Falling Particle Receiver”. In previous studies, two small-scale TES systems were constructed for measuring heat loss at high temperatures that are compatible with the falling particle receiver concept, both of which had shown very limited heat loss. Through the course of those studies, it became evident that there was a lack of information about the thermal performance of some of the insulating refractory materials used in the experiments at high temperatures, especially insulating firebrick and perlite concrete. This work focuses on determining the thermal conductivities of those materials at high temperatures. The apparatus consists of a prototype cylindrical TES bin built with the same wall construction used in previous studies. An electric heater is placed along the centerline of the bin, and thermocouples are used to measure temperature at the interfaces between all layers. Heat loss is measured across one of the layers whose thermal conductivity had already been well established using laboratory experiments. This value is used to deduce the thermal conductivity of other layers. Three interior temperature levels were considered; namely, 300°C, 500°C, and 700°C. Results show that the thermal conductivity of insulating firebrick remains low (approximately 0.22 W/m.K) at an average layer temperature as high as 640°C, but it was evident that the addition of mortar had an impact on its effective thermal conductivity. Results also show that the thermal conductivity of perlite concrete is very low, approximately 0.15 W/m.K at an average layer temperature of 360°C. This is evident by the large temperature drop that occurs across the perlite concrete layer. These results should be useful for future studies, especially those that focus on numerical modeling of TES bins.