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PATENTS
Temperature-control pallet cover
U.S. patent application 20170096283 (applicant Cold Chain Technologies Inc., Holliston, Mass.):
“A pallet cover suitable for use in covering at least a portion of a payload on a pallet and a kit for use in making the pallet cover. In one embodiment, the pallet cover includes a top wall, a front wall, a rear wall, a left side wall, and a right side wall, wherein the walls are detachably joined to one another. Each of the top wall, the front wall, the rear wall, the left side wall, and the right side wall includes a first fabric sheet and a second fabric sheet, the first and second fabric sheets being joined together to form a plurality of pockets. Each pocket [37] may removably receive a temperature-control member containing a phase-change material. At least one of the top wall, the front wall, the rear wall, the left side wall and the right side wall includes a plurality of detachably joined portions.”
Form-stabilized phase change compositions
U.S. patent application 20170096590 (applicant Smart PCM Patent Holdco LLC, Loveland, Colo.):
“Provided herein are form stabilized phase change materials and methods of their manufacture. Form stabilized phase change material compositions comprise porous particulate carriers impregnated with at least one phase change material. The particulate carriers are of a specific size range depending on the density and loading capacity of the particles. Exemplary carriers include expanded perlite with a particle size of greater than approximately 0.5 millimeters. In some examples, the products may have phase change material at 40% or more of the final composition by volume. Additionally, methods of manufacturing the form stabilized phase change materials are provided, and exemplary building materials and shipping containers are provided.”
IN BRIEF
• Frank Bruno, leader of the Thermal Energy Storage Group at the University of South Australia, talks about the advantages of thermal storage in an interview with the Guardian newspaper.
• Robert Riebolge, chief network analyst of the Adelaide-based energy storage company 1414 Degrees, tells Ecogeneration magazine that storage is “quite clearly” the solution to the intermittency problem of wind and solar. But, he says, the way in which the Australian market is constructed and the regulatory system is set up doesn’t allow for its easy introduction.
• The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia has teamed with Basque technology company Tecnalia to develop On Site Robotics, a 3D printing construction project in which sustainable, low-cost buildings can be built on-site with a special clay-based material made of natural, biodegradable, recyclable and locally sourced materials.
• Get the latest information on the Toxic Substances Control Act in a free webinar April 19. The presentation by Mark N. Duvall of the environmental law firm Beveridge & Diamond will identify the principal amendments, discuss the impact on manufacturers and compare the amended TSCA to the European Union‘s REACH regulation.
• In a video posted on YouTube, Adam Tetz of Pelican BioThermal and other industry experts discuss the future of temperature controlled logistics at last month’s Temperature Controlled Logistics Europe 2017.
• The European Technology and Innovation Platform on Renewable Heating & Cooling has issued a call for presentations to be made at the group’s annual event in Brussels June 20. Topics include biomass; district heating and cooling; solar thermal heating and cooling; hybrid systems; and thermal energy storage. Applications are due by May 22.
• Tata Steel and EnergyNest have begun work on a thermal energy storage demo project at Tata’s plant in IJmuiden, Netherland. EnergyNest’s concrete-based TES system will store exhaust heat from steel production to cover some of the plant’s energy demands. EnergyNest, meanwhile, won the top prize in the 2017 Nordic Cleantech Open this week. The contest, organized by Cleantech Scandinavia, consisted of several competitive rounds in which hundreds of companies applied.
• Chris Pais has joined Axiom Exergy as director of field operations. Pais was previously director of system architecture at LightSail Energy. Axiom’s “refrigeration battery” system, aimed at supermarkets and cold storage warehouses, stores water chilled at night, when electricity is cheapest, to take the load off condensers and compressors during the day.
• Vaibhav Bahadur, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, was one of eight faculty members at the university to receive National Science Foundation early career development awards totaling more than $2 million. Bahadur received funding for his project “Influence of electric fields on liquid-to-solid phase change associated with clathrate hydrate formation.”
• In a piece posted on LinkedIn, Liam Holmes, Europe and Asia engineering team lead at Sonoco ThermoSafe, writes about the role of industrial design in the temperature-assurance packaging industry’s shift from single-use products to modular reusable green systems.
RESEARCH ROUNDUP
For our full list of recent academic research, see puretemp.com/academic. Here are highlights from the past week:
From Renewable Energy:• Investigation of unbranched, saturated, carboxylic esters as phase change materials
• Investigation of the corrosive properties of phase change materials in contact with metals and plastic
From International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer:
• Experimental investigation of the performance of cool storage shelf for vertical open refrigerated display cabinet
From Water, Energy & Food Sustainability in the Middle East:
• Energy Storage Systems for Smart Grid Applications
From International Journal of Automotive Technology:
• Numerical analysis and experimental study on the performance optimization of cold storage heat exchanger integrated with evaporator
From Thermochimica Acta:
• Effects of SiO2 nanoparticles on structure and property of form-stable phase change materials made of cellulose acetate phase inversion membrane absorbed with capric-myristic-stearic acid ternary eutectic mixture
From Open Journal of Energy Efficiency:
• Influence of the PCM Layer Location on the Multilayer Wall Thermal Performance
From Energy Procedia:
• Numerical Model for Solidification and Melting of PCM Encapsulated in Spherical Shells
NETWORKING
Connect with PCM experts and industry leaders on LinkedIn
More than a thousand of your peers have joined a LinkedIn group devoted to the discussion of phase change material and thermal energy storage. The Phase Change Matters group is an interactive complement to the award-winning blog and newsletter of the same name.
You are invited to join the group and connect with PCM and TES experts from around the world. New members this week include Ryan Newth, new business development at Tremco Commercial Sealants & Waterproofing, Kansas City, Mo.; Chris Halvorsen, senior account manager at Sartomer, Exton, Penn.; Senthilkumaran Srinivasan, assistant professor at Knowledge Institute of Technology, Selliampalayam, India; and Adriana Coca Ortegon, consulting engineer in energy efficiency, Tarragona, Spain.