Liquid nitrogen energy storage unit

Abstract An energy storage unit is a device able to store thermal energy with a limited temperature drift. After precooling such unit with a cryocooler it can be used as a temporary cold source if the cryocooler is stopped or as a thermal buffer to attenuate temperature fluctuations due to heat bursts. In this article, after a brief study of the possible solutions for such devices, we show that a low temperature cell filled with liquid nitrogen and coupled to a room temperature expansion volume offers the most compact and light solution in the temperature range 60–80 K. For instance, a low temperature cell as small as 23 cm 3 allows the storage of 3.7 kJ between 76 K and 81 K. Experimental results were obtained varying the expansion volume size, the filling pressure and the temperature range. These results agree with our simple model based on thermodynamical properties of nitrogen. A cell filled with porous material was tested to confine the liquid in the cell independently of the gravity. This material enhances the thermal exchange for high liquid filling ratio whereas below ≈16% a solution must be found to improve the heat exchange coefficient between the fluid and the cell walls. Our calculations are extended to the 80–120 K temperature range for nitrogen and argon in order to clarify the various parameters to take into account for an energy storage unit dimensioning.