High temperature Mn2O3/Mn3O4 and Co3O4/CoO systems for thermo-chemical energy storage.

Abstract A major action to reduce CO2 emissions is replacing fossil fuels by renewable energy sources. Matching the energy supply and demand by the mostly intermittent renewable resources (wind, solar, wave) is hence a hot topic, and energy storage has become crucial. Thermo-chemical energy storage (TCES) has a higher energy density than sensible and latent heat storage, and allows energy to be stored in the reaction products for multiple reuse and even off-site application. Design parameters are the equilibrium temperature, the reaction heat and the reaction rate, as obtained from both thermodynamic and kinetic assessments. Equilibrium temperatures of the selected metal oxides, Mn2O3/Mn3O4 and Co3O4/CoO are between 1115 K and 1179 K. The present research studies both redox reactions as examples. Commercial Mn2O3 and Co3O4 were previously investigated in detail, and suffer from incomplete reversibility. The present study investigates the use of self-made Mn2O3 and Co3O4 mesoporous particles, of micrometer or nanometer scale, respectively. The average particle size of self-made Mn2O3 particles is