Paper Title
Application of Metal Foam-Phase Change Material Combination as an Advanced Energy Storage Material in Domestic Space Heating

Abstract
The objective of this numerical study the effect of metal foam-phase change material (PCM) as an advanced energy storage material for domestic space heating. The composite PCM is used as a latent heat storage (LHS) air heater to provide a uniform output temperature as a space heater devise according to the required heating load of a typical room in the required heating hours. The phase change material (PCM) is embedded in a copper porous structure to enhance the rate of heat transfer and overcome the low thermal conductivity of PCMs. The unit is analyzed in both charging and discharging mechanism. The results show the significant advantages of composite metal foam/PCM-air heat exchanger in comparison with the PCM-only unit on both the discharging time (56.5 % reduction) and the uniformity of output temperature. The study of different thermal models shows that the non-equilibrium model shows 18.5 % higher solidification time with almost similar output temperature in comparison with the equilibrium model. The system with the height of 30cm, PCM and air channel thickness of 15cm and 2cm, respectively, and a width of 1m, is capable to provide the desired output temperature of 41.1°C for more than 16 hours with the air mass flow rate of 0.02kg/s. Keywords - Phase Change Material, Latent Heat Storage, Composite Metal Foam-PCM, Charging, Discharging, Heat Transfer