Characterization of demolition waste powder to be processed as sensible thermal energy storage material

Abstract

Replacing fossil fuels with alternative energy resources to meet industrial heat demand necessitates using cost-effective thermal energy storage (TES) for efficient and secure operation. Waste-based materials such as industrial by-products, industrial furnace slags, municipal, demolition wastes (DW) offer alternative low cost sensible thermal energy storage materials (STESM) for solar heat industrial applications. The only drawback is their inhomogeneous nature requiring some pre-treatment steps. DW have a great potential as cheap and high performance STESM, if they can be conditioned with optimum properties. In this study, DW samples collected from an urban regeneration project were conditioned with some pre-treatment processes such as crushing, sieving, drying and mixing to produce rigid and homogeneous STESMs. DW powders obtained after processing were characterized to evaluate its suitability to produce STESMs. The results showed that DW powders could be converted to a durable STESM with high storage capacity for use in solar heat industrial applications up to 700 °C.