Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Review

A critical review on phase change material energy storage systems

with cascaded configurations
S. Christopher a, *, K. Parham b, A.H. Mosaffa c, M.M. Farid d, Zhenjun Ma e,
Amrit Kumar Thakur a, **, Huijin Xu f, R. Saidur g, h
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, CEG Campus, Anna University, Chennai, 600025, Tamil Nadu, India
b
Department of Energy and Petroleum Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Stavanger, 4036, Stavanger, Norway
c
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz, Iran
d
Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, University of Auckland, New Zealand
e
Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC), University of Wollongong, Australia
f
China-UK Low Carbon College, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China
g
Research Centre for Nano-Materials and Energy Technology (RCNMET), School of Science and Technology, Sunway University, No. 5, Jalan Universiti,
Bandar Sunway, Petaling Jaya, 47500, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
h
Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan,
Malaysia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper reviews cascaded or multiple phase change materials (PCMs) approach to provide a funda-
Received 4 February 2020 mental understanding of their thermal behaviors, the performance in terms of heat transfer uniformity,
Received in revised form and the influence of input parameters and different geometrical containments on the performance of
7 October 2020
latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES) systems. Furthermore, the performance enhancement of
Accepted 11 October 2020
energy components through the implementation of cascaded techniques and cascaded arrangements of
Available online 14 October 2020
PCMs accompanied by other enhancement approaches is discussed. The influence of stage numbers
Handling editor: Prof. Jiri Jaromir Kleme
s affecting the performance of the cascaded LHTES unit is summarized and the range of recommended
values for those parameters is provided. Our critical evaluation demonstrates that replacing single PCM
Keywords: by multiple PCMs shows the possibility of improving the performance of TES in terms of energy, exergy
Phase change material and entransy charging/discharging rate along with increased stored/retrieved energy and exergy effi-
Cascaded LHTES ciency. It is also shown that the cascaded LHTES systems opens the doors of opportunity for the seasonal
Exergy energy sources and extracting the optimum amount of energy within the stipulated time through the
Multiple PCMs
proper arrangement of PCMs. Finally, the discussions are extended to the challenges of implementing the
Entransy
cascaded PCMs with some recommendations for future research in this direction.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Overview of cascaded PCMs configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Thermal performance studies on cascaded LHTES system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Thermodynamics evaluation of cascaded LHTES system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5.1. Energy and exergy analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5.2. Entransy dissipation theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6. Numerical and simulation analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

* Corresponding author.
** Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: christophersathya@gmail.com (S. Christopher), amritt1@
gmail.com (A.K. Thakur).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124653
0959-6526/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
S. Christopher, K. Parham, A.H. Mosaffa et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653

7. Optimal arrangement in cascaded/multiple PCMs technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

8. Effect of operational parameters, containment geometry and type of heat exchanger on the performance cascaded LHTES system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8.1. Influence of the operational parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8.2. Multiple/cascaded PCMs techniques in rectangular, cylindrical and spherical encapsulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8.3. Arrangement of PCMs with different types of heat exchangers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
9. Performance enhancement of energy components through implementing the cascaded LHTES technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
9.1. Compressed air storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
9.2. Electronic/electrical cooling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
9.3. Solar based applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
9.3.1. Solar PV technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
9.3.2. Solar thermal technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
10. Multiple/cascaded thermal energy storage with other enhancement techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
11. Experimental studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
12. Economic analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
13. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
14. Recommendations and future development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Declaration of competing interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

1. Introduction utilization and eliminating the need for conversion to other forms
of energy (Christopher et al., 2020). The exclusion of different en-
Recent rapid urbanization and industrialization, have triggered ergy conversions in the TES system augments the overall system
a growing increase in energy consumption by various sectors such performance by storing energy in sensible (without a change in
as buildings, transportation and industrial processes phase) and latent (with a change in phase) using the respective
(“International Energy Outlook,” 2007). As illustrated in Fig. 1, it is storage medium (Thakur et al. 2018a, 2020a, 2020b). However, the
predicted that the global energy demand for the building sector sensible heat storage has a low energy storage density compared to
will boost up to 112 E J by 2040. Currently, a major portion of the Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage (LHTES) systems. The LHTES
required energy is provided by non-renewable energy resources system uses phase change material (PCM) for storing and retrieval
like fossil fuels and nuclear. To avoid over dependence on them and of heat in a nearly isothermal manner mostly through a solid to
negativeimpact on the environment, researchers have focused their liquid conversion and vice versa. This salient feature has made
attention to utilize renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, PCMs to be employed in solar systems, building energy conserva-
tides, waves, and geothermal energy (Farmanbar et al., 2019). Based tion temperature-regulating textiles, thermal management, and
on a report of the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC), waste heat recovery systems (Lin et al., 2020).
renewables have the capability to supply 3078 times more energy The commonly used PCMs can be grouped into organic, inor-
than that of the present global energy demand (RE-thinking2050, ganic, eutectics and metal categories. Organic PCMs are further
2013). However, their intermittent and unpredictable nature leads classified into paraffin and non-paraffin PCMs, where both of them
to a mismatch between the demand/supply equality. The devel- own several desirable thermal advantages in terms of high storage
opment of effective energy storage systems could play a crucial role density, chemical stability, negligible sub-cooling besides the
in the provision of power leveling and operational flexibility. En- crucial drawbacks of low thermal conductivity and flammability
ergy can be stored in mechanical, thermal, magnetic, compressed (Zalba et al., 2003). Inorganic PCMs mainly including salts and salt
air and electrochemical forms. One of the most promising methods hydrates are attractive due to their higher energy storage capacity,
is the storage of cool/hot energy using thermal energy storage (TES) and relatively higher thermal conductivities than those of organic
systems because of their inherent advantages such as direct PCMs. However, the major problem of inorganic PCMs are thermal
stability, supercooling, poor nucleation, high vapor pressure,
corrosion, decomposition, and phase segregation (Zalba et al.,
2003). A eutectic mixture is a combination of organic-organic,
inorganic-inorganic and inorganic-organic at the required pro-
portions to synthesize a tailor-made PCM. Their major advantages
are the potential of obtaining a specific melting temperature or
higher latent per unit volume, and limited data of their thermo-
physical properties are available (Su et al., 2015). Metals have
thermal properties of large thermal conductivities and sharp
melting temperatures. However, their extremely low latent heat is
not fit for several applications.
Moreover, due to the low thermal conductivity of the PCMs, the
heat transfer process during the phase change is restricted. It is
recognized as a weakness of them and causes a considerable
reduction in the thermal performance of the TES systems. Several
passive techniques such as extended fins (Liu et al., 2005), placing
metal foams (Li et al., 2017), and dispersion of micro/nanometric
solid particles into PCMs (Thakur et al., 2018b, 2020c;
Jegadheeswaran and Pohekar, 2010) are adopted for augmenting
Fig. 1. Global energy consumption (“International Energy Outlook,” 2007).

2
S. Christopher, K. Parham, A.H. Mosaffa et al.
the thermal performance of PCMs. However, drawbacks such as
increasing the pressure drop, settlement of solid particles and
higher weights and sizes are the major challenges of implementing
the passive systems. Besides these passive techniques, the thermal
performance of TES systems can be further enhanced through the
selection of a proper configuration depending on applications. The
general configurations of the PCMs used for TES systems are the
matrix, series, and parallel arrangements (Farid and Kanzawa,
1989). The PCMs stacked vertically in the storage bed are referred
as cascaded/multiple PCMs. The cascaded arrangement of PCMs is a
highly appropriate and effective means of enhancing the charging
and discharging rates and storage capacity (Farid and Kanzawa,
1989).
Considering the fascinating advantage of cascaded/multiple
PCMs, this paper provides a systematic review of analytical, nu-
merical, theoretical optimization and experimental studies on
cascaded LHTES systems. The goal of this work is to provide a
fundamental understanding of cascaded LHTES systems. Further-
more, the thermal performance enhancement in energy compo-
nents through the implementation of cascaded techniques and
combining cascaded LHTES systems by some other enhancement
approaches are also extensively discussed. The influence of the
stage numbers in the performance of the cascaded LHTES units is
summarized, and the desirable ranges for those parameters are
indicated. Furthermore, mathematical studies targeting the opti-
mum PCMs melting temperature of each layer are also reviewed.
Finally, an overview of the experimental works besides some rec-
ommendations for future research development in cascaded LHTES
systems is provided.
(Narasimhan, 2019) recently published a review article on
“Assessment of latent heat thermal storage systems operating with
multiple phase change materials” which was the closest paper to
the topic. Focus of the article was mainly on the advantages of
implementing the cascaded LHTES over conventional energy stor-
age (single) but did not provide any empirical relations or mathe-
matical expressions for the practical evaluation of such systems. In
order to design an efficient cascaded LHTES system, there are many
parameters such as containment type of heat exchangers and effect
of input parameters such as inlet HTF temperature and mass flow
rates based on applications used need to be considered. In our
study, a separate section (Section 8) was dedicated to all above
mentioned parameters to make a detailed study on the effect of
these parameters on the performance of cascaded LHTES systems.
Apart from this, a section on mathematical expressions using
thermodynamic techniques is provided in terms of energy, exergy
and entransy to evaluate the cascaded LHTES system having ‘N’
number of PCMs arranged in series and the mathematical relation
were derived in such a way that these relations can be used for
practical evaluation with limited available data (Section 5).
Furthermore, the performance enhancement of energy compo-
nents through implementing the cascaded LHTES technique was
reviewed for various energy sources which were not coveredin the
previous review article (Narasimhan, 2019). On the other hand, the
review paper provided by Zayed et al. (2019) focused on the solar
collectors integrated with cascaded LHTES systems. While the focus
of our work is on the cascaded LHTES systems with various energy
sources for both heating/cooling applications.
2. Methodology
The searching process for published works within cascaded
based PCM setups, was conducted using keywords such as
“cascaded LHTES system”, “multiple PCMs”, “advantageous of
multiple PCMs” and “experimental studies in cascaded LHTES
system”. For the aim of selecting the appropriate techniques for
3
Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653
cascaded LHTES/multiple PCMs, the following key points where
considered:

Cascaded/multiple PCMs integrated with solar collectors.

Cascaded/multiple PCMs integrated with various energy
component/sources.

Optimization technique adopted for cascaded LHTES system.

Simulation and mathematical modeling of cascaded LHTES
systems.

Enhancement in the performance of energy source by imple-
menting cascaded LHTES systems.
The literature content representing and branching of the
selected studies were executed based on the following main
inquires:

What are the advantages of implementing a cascaded LHTES
system over a conventional LHTES system?

What are the major challenges associated in the implementa-
tion of cascaded LHTES systems?

What are the techniques used to evaluate the performance of
cascade LHTES systems?

Among the various techniques, which ones best fit for the
practical implementations?

Which parameters are affecting the performance of the energy
components by integrating with various energy sources?

What is the effect of containment on the thermal performance
of the system?

What is the percentage of enhancement by combining cascaded
LHTES with those of other enhancement techniques?

What specific conclusions are made through the adaption of
cascaded LHTES systems?
Under each category, the advantages of cascaded LHTES for
various inputs over the conventional system are studied. Addi-
tionally, for effective design and implementation of cascaded LHTES
systems under different conditions an organized design approach
are also discussed in detail.
3. Overview of cascaded PCMs configurations
The major problem of reducing charging/discharging rate owing
to reduced temperature driving potential at the bottom of the
LHTES tank can be overwhelmed by appropriately placing more
than one PCM and such an arrangement is called the cascaded
configuration. The PCMs are selected in such a way that the tem-
perature driving potential is maintained to charge/discharge uni-
form heat flux that in turn enhances the overall performance of the
system. Compared to conventional latent heat energy storage sys-
tems, only limited studies have been carried out using the cascaded
configuration (Peiro et al., 2015). It is inferred that the selection of
PCMs with desirable phase change properties and thermal trans-
port properties plays a major role in the thermal performance
enhancement of the LHTES system. In addition, the arrangement of
PCMs in the right order is the most important task to avoid the
temperature driving potential (the temperature difference between
the melting temperature of PCMs and heat transfer fluid (HTF))
failure which can lead to a decrease in the system performance.
(Solomon and Oztekin, 2016).
Fig. 2 shows a typical cascaded LHTES system, in which the
charging and discharging processes are depicted for hot and cold
energy storage applications. In hot thermal energy storage, during
the charging process, the PCMs are placed in the decreasing order
of the phase change temperature (melting) along with the flow
direction of the HTF while the HTF is allowed to flow in the reverse
S. Christopher, K. Parham, A.H. Mosaffa et al.
Fig. 2. Multiple layers of PCMs.
direction during the discharging process. In the case of cool thermal
energy storage, the process is vice versa as shown in Fig. 2.
4. Thermal performance studies on cascaded LHTES system
The first cascaded configuration system using air as the HTF was
presented by (Farid and Kanzawa, 1990) and was further extended
by (Watanabe et al., 1993) using water as the HTF. Their studies
illustrated that the cascaded LHTES system could provide better
thermal performance compared to a conventional LHTES (single
PCM) (Farid and Kanzawa, 1990). Carried out an experimental study
on a cascaded LHTES configuration during the charging and dis-
charging process. Their result showed that there is a heat transfer
enhancement of 15% by implementing the cascaded configuration
in LHTES systems, in comparison to a conventional LHTES system.
The impact of the cascaded configuration on the LHTES unit
performance was investigated by (Chiu and Martin, 2013). They
reported that the implementation of the cascaded PCMs configu-
ration enhanced the LHTES performance by 10e40% compared to a
single-stage PCM storage unit in terms of charging and discharging
rate. The reason is the ability of the cascaded PCMs to maintain a
higher temperature driving potential between the PCMs and HTF
during the charging and discharging processes. However, this
enhancement in the charging/discharging rate led to a reduction in
the volume and the mass of the LHTES unit and subsequently
economic investment (Cui et al., 2003). In another study (Mehling
and Cabeza, 2008), reported that the cascaded LHTES system out-
performed the single stage LHTES in terms of the energy stored
factor. The energy stored factor was defined as the ratio of the
Fig. 3. Comparison of the temperature of two different configurations (Mehling and Cabeza, 2008).
4
Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653
amount of energy stored in the sensible to that of a latent of the
PCM material. It was shown that during the charging process, the
amount of energy accumulated in conventional PCMs (single PCMs)
was three times higher than that of the sensible energy storage,
leading to a small temperature difference between PCMs melting
temperature and HTF temperature as shown in Fig. 3(a). For the
same case, the energy stored factor reduced to 1.5 when there is a
large temperature difference between PCMs melting temperature
and HTF temperature as shown in Fig. 3(a). Thus, there was no point
in using a single stage LHTES unit over a sensible storage unit for a
given temperature ranges. In order to solve the above difficulties,
the authors proposed a concept of cascaded/multiple PCM tech-
nique. Fig. 3(b) depicted a typical three-layer system in which PCM-
1 with low phase transition temperature which was heated from T1
to T2, PCM-2 with a medium phase transition temperature heated
from T2 to T3 and the PCM-3 with a high phase transition temper-
ature heated from T3 to the maximum temperature. The employ-
ment of such an arrangement can maintain the energy stored factor
between the cascaded LHTES system and sensible heat approxi-
mately at 2.5 for any layer along with the TES unit.
(Xu and Zhao, 2016) proposed a novel multistage heat engine
system to study the cascaded LHTES unit for hot and cold storage
applications under various design conditions. The results showed
that relevant temperature selection for multi-graded thermal en-
ergies is extended by using cascaded LHTES and thermal efficiency
including both energy and exergy efficiencies is enhanced by
increasing in PCMs layer. In another study, a steady state power
production model was developed by (Lim et al., 1992) to examine
the LHTES of using more than one PCM for energy storage. Their
result exhibited that the 2-PCMs storage unit could store 28% more
energy rather than that of the optimized single PCM (Adebiyi,
1991). Indicated the occurrence of a significant exergy loss while
the HTF escaped from the system at a high temperature for long-
term charging purposes. As expected, the exergy losses were
reduced by the implementation of multiple PCMs techniques. This
was because the exit temperature of the HTF was small enough in
multiple PCMs systems (Kousksou et al., 2007). Proposed a solar air
heater system incorporating a TES and analyzed the system ther-
modynamically from both energy and exergy points of view. The
possibility of improving the overall system efficiency and lowering
the irreversibility of the TES unit by proper selection of PCMs for
each layer was reported in (Khor et al., 2020). They studied the
charging characteristics of three PCM configurations and the result
revealed that the energy efficiency of the cascaded LHTES system
could enhance through reducing the charging time of adjacent
PCMs close to each other.
S. Christopher, K. Parham, A.H. Mosaffa et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653

 
ðTavg;HTF þTavg;PCM Þ
kinsulation  ATES section  2  Te
Qloss ¼ Qcod;ins ¼
l
(3)
The energy efficiency during the charging process is defined by
Eq. (4) (Zhao et al., 2018).

n h
P  i
mPCM;j lTPCM;j  lTPCM;initial;j
j¼1
Fig. 4. Change in temperature of HTF. hc ¼ (4)
P
n  
mHTF cp Tjþ1  Tj
j¼1

5. Thermodynamics evaluation of cascaded LHTES system where j is the stage number of the PCM; Te is the ambient tem-
perature; Tc,jþ1 and Tc,j are the outlet and inlet temperature of the
5.1. Energy and exergy analyses HTF during the charging process; TPCM is the temperature of the
PCM; kinsulation is the thermal conductivity of the insulation, ATES
Energy analysis aims to evaluate the behavior, performance, and section is the cross sectional area of the TES tank; mPCM is the mass of
efficiency of the systems for energy conversion. It is evident that, the PCM; l is the latent heat of the PCM. mHTF is the mass of the
the irreversibility of the system cannot be identified and assessed HTF; l is the thickness of the insulation material.
by energy analysis. The concept of exergy analysis, has been The overall energy balance during the discharging process is
introduced for overcoming the deficits of energy analysis. The expressed in Eq. (5). Similarly, the energy efficiency during the
exergy analysis provides knowledge related to the limitation of TES discharging is denoted by Eq. (6) (Dinc ̧er and Rosen, 2011).
systems as a direct index of thermal exergy loss. The main purpose
of this section is to clarify how the energy and exergy concepts have X
n   X
n
been employed for the cascaded/multiple PCMs besides the prac- QPCM ¼ mHTF cp Td;j1  Td;j þ
ticality of such analyses. j¼1 HTF¼1
An LHTES unit with multiple PCMs is shown in Fig. 4. In this
 
ðTavg;HTF þTavg;PCM Þ
case, the HTF transferred thermal energy to the PCMs layer by layer. X
n kinsulation  ATES section  2  Te
The ambient temperature was Te. The HTF with an inlet tempera-  (5)
l
ture of (T(c,d)j) flows through the PCMs and transfers or retrieve its PCM¼1

thermal energy to the PCM correspondingly. The phase change

temperatures were denoted as (Tm1, Tm2, Tm3, …, Tmn). The channel P
n  
temperatures were denoted by Tc1, Tc2, Tc3, …, Tc(j), Tc(jþ1) for mHTF cp Td;j1  Td;j
j¼1
charging and Td1, Td2, Td3, …, Td(j), Td(j-1) for discharging processes. hd ¼ (6)
n h
P  i
The overall energy balance of the charging and discharging mPCM;j lTPCM;initial;j  lTPCM;j
processes for the storage system is described as follows (Dinç;er j¼1
and Rosen, 2011):
where Td,j-1 and Td,j are the outlet and inlet temperature of the HTF
during the discharging process.
Qin  Qloss ¼ QPCM (1)
Eq. (7) represents the overall energy efficiency of the cascaded
where Qin is the energy input, Qloss is energy loss between the HTF TES (Dinçer and Rosen, 2011).
and PCM in the TEs system to ambient temperature, and QPCM is the
energy stored in PCM. n 
P 
Td;j1  Td;j
The overall energy balance during the charging process is given j¼1
by Eq. (2). h¼ (7)
n 
P 
Tc;jþ1  Tc;j
j¼1
X
n   n h
X 
mHTF cp Tc;jþ1  Tc;j  Qloss ¼ mPCM;j lTPCM;j The overall exergy balance of the charging and discharging
j¼1 j¼1 (2) processes of the storage system is indicated by Eq. (8).
i
 lTPCM;initial;j
Exin  Exloss  I ¼ Exacc (8)
The heat loss between the TES and ambient is considered using
the term conductive loss through the insulation material. Convec- where Exin, Exloss, I and Exacc represent input, loss, consumption,
tive heat transfers from the outer surface of the TES system are and accumulation exergies, respectively.
neglected and it is due to the assumption that the TES system was The overall exergy balance and exergy efficiency during the
well insulated and the temperature difference between the surface charging process are given by Eq. (9) and Eq. (10), respectively
area the TES tank and ambient temperature are negligible. (Zhao et al., 2018).

5
S. Christopher, K. Parham, A.H. Mosaffa et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653

2 3
" # " #
X
n   Tc;jþ1 Xn 6 1 1 7 Xn
Te
mHTF cp Tc;jþ1  Tc;j  Te ln  Qin;j 6
4mPCM;j T  7Te  Exloss ¼
Tc;jþ1 þTc;j 5
Q PCM;j 1  (9)
j¼1
Tc;j j¼1 m PCM;j j¼1
TPCM;j
PCM 2

" #
P
n
Te
QPCM;j 1  TPCM;j GE ¼ GPCM þ Gloss ;4 (14)
j¼1
jc ¼ " # (10)
P
n   T
where GE , Gloss;4 and GPCM are the entransy overall heat transfer
mHTF cp Tc;jþ1  Tc;j  Te ln Tc;jþ1
c;j rate, heat dissipation loss rate/entransy dissipation rate and rate of
j¼1
entransy storage, individually. Fig. 5 shows the entransy balance for
The same trend applied for the charging process was used for the PCM medium during the charging process.
the discharging process and the overall exergy balance and the Entransy heat transfer rate flowing from HTF to PCMs could be
exergy efficiency during the discharging are given by Eqs. (11) and estimated using the equation given by (Guo et al., 2007):
(12), respectively (Dinçer and Rosen, 2011).

2 3
" # " #
X
n   Td;j1 Xn 6 1 1 7 Xn
T
Qin;j 6  T þT 7
e
mHTF cp Td;j1  Td;j  Te ln  4mPCM;j T Te  Exloss ¼ QPCM;j 1  (11)
Tc;j d;j d;j1 5 TPCM;j
j¼1 j¼1 mPCM PCM;j 2 j¼1

" # 1: 2 1: 2
  GE ¼ Gout  Gin ¼ m cTout  m cTin (15)
P
n
T 2 2
mHTF cp Td;j1  Td;j  Te ln Td;j1
d;j
j¼1 (Guo et al., 2007) further integrated Eq. (15) for the evaluation of
jd ¼ " # (12)
P
n the cumulative entransy transferred between HTF and PCMs (GCE ).
Te
Qin;j 1  TPCM;j
j¼1
ðt
The overall exergy efficiency of the cascaded LHTES is presented GCE ¼ GE dt (16)
as follows (Dinçer and Rosen, 2011): 0
" #
n 
P  The stored entransy rate in the PCMs (GCPCM ) is evaluated as
T
Td;j1  Td;j  Te ln Td;j1
d;j
follows:
j¼1
j¼ " # (13) 1
n 
P  Tc;jþ1 X
n n 
X
Tc;jþ1  Tc;j  Te ln Tc;j 1
GCPCM ¼ GPCM;j ¼ QPCM;j TPCM;j A (17)
j¼1
j¼1 j¼1
2

The efficiency of the entransy (he ) is defined as the ratio of the

5.2. Entransy dissipation theory
cumulative entransy stored in PCMs to the cumulative entransy
transferred from the HTF to PCMs.
The entransy and its dissipation theory have attracted great
attention in optimizing and evaluating the performance of three ðt
modes of heat transfer and heat transfer sources, namely, heat GCPCM
exchangers, steam hybrid thermal network, finless evaporative, air he ¼ 0
(18)
cooler system and HVAC systems.
Gtotal
The concepts of entransy and its corresponding dissipation were
first introduced by (Guo et al., 2007) for measuring the heat transfer
capacity of a certain body. The word entransy indicates the energy
(en-) and transferability (-transy) while entransy (G) as given by
multiplication of internal energy of the material (U) and material
temperature (T) divided by 2 (G ¼ UT/2), respectively.
To evaluate the thermal performance of the LHTES unit based on
entransy and its dissipation (Guo et al., 2007), accomplished an
entransy balance on the LHTES unit during the charging process
expressed as follows: Fig. 5. Schematic diagram for the cascaded LHTES.

6
S. Christopher, K. Parham, A.H. Mosaffa et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653

The above derived entransy equations describe the heat transfer

capability occurring during the heat transferring as a measure of
irreversibility. In fact, entransy is another thermodynamic evalua-
tion criterion for the system performance analysis and optimiza-
tion, which is different from entropy analysis. Using entransy to
optimize the cascaded thermal storage systems can be found in the
study reported by Xu and Zhao (2019). This concept was created for
the purpose of heat transfer, rather than the heat-work conversion.
From the optimization results (Xu and Zhao, 2017a, 2017b, 2019), it
was found that entransy optimization was better than entropy
optimization if the energy stored in the cascaded system was used
for heating/cooling purposes. However, if the heat stored in the
cascaded system is used for heat-work conversion, entropy is a
better criterion for optimizing the system. The complexity associ-
ated with entransy dissipation theory is that the stored heat and
transferred heat has not yet been completely defined and tabulated
as properties (Kostic, 2017).
The evaluation and optimization of the cascaded LHTES unit Fig. 6. Sketch of PCMs placed between thin barriers (Gong and Mujumdar, 1996a).
with entransy and its dissipation theory was carried out for some
limited cases as in (Tao et al., 2014), (Xu and Zhao, 2015), (Wang
modified the thermal properties of the HTF. The numerical results
et al., 2017), (Xu and Zhao, 2017a, 2017b, 2019), (Li et al., 2019)
demonstrated that the amount of energy stored and retrieved
and (Zhao et al., 2018). The major studies on the entransy theory for
during the charging and discharging process in the cascaded LHTES
optimizing the cascaded LHTES system is presented in Section (7).
system were higher than those of single PCMs.
Another 1-D finite element heat conduction model for phase
6. Numerical and simulation analysis
changing was presented by (Gong and Mujumdar, 1996a), where
the TES tank was separated by a thermally thin barrier to separate
It is necessary to carry out a numerical evaluation to determine
the PCMs from each other as shown in Fig. 6. Three different case
the system performance before manufacturing the system. There-
studies were conducted: thin barrier with single PCMs, thin barrier
fore, the heat transfer investigation is a beneficial tool to forecast
with two PCMs and thin barrier with three PCMs. The authors used
the time dependent variations of the system. The PCM problems are
a thermal conductivity of the HTF and PCMs directly, without using
generally solved using finite element, finite volume or finite dif-
empirical correlation for effective thermal conductivities. The per-
ference technique in accordance with the numerical approach.
formance of two and three PCMs configuration was found to be
The behavior of the PCM is better to be modelled separately
superior with charging and discharging rates improved by about
because of the non-linear nature. The most common methods used
15.2% and 21.9% respectively with the ratio of thermal conductivity
to model the PCMs are the heat conduction model (Farid and
of solid (ks) and liquid (kl) considered as one. The thermal perfor-
Kanzawa, 1989), the enthalpy method (Shamsi et al., 2017), the
mance of the three PCMs configuration was increased by 32% when
convection-diffusion phase transition heat transfer model (Shaikh
the thermal conductivity ratio (ks/kl) was decreased to 0.1.
and Lafdi, 2006), the concentric dispersion model (Wu M, Xu C,
Furthermore, reducing the thermal diffusivity ratio between the
2016), and the apparent heat capacity model (Yang et al., 2014).
solid and liquid showed an improvement of thermal performance
These numerical methods presented here in for the cascaded LHTES
for the cascaded LHTES system. Later (Gong and Mujumdar, 1996b),
systems were handled periodicity (melting/solidification pro-
numerically studied the cyclic energy charge and discharge rate of
cesses). The above mentioned methods are often used to study the
the cascaded LHTES system consisting of a coaxial cylinder owning
behavior of PCMs with a wide range of temperatures. Further, the
five different zones as illustrated in Fig. 7. During the charging
above said numerical model presented at the current work has used
process, initially the PCM and HTF were assumed to have a uniform
a different empirical relation to determine the physical aspects
temperature, and next to running the experiment, HTF at the fixed
such as convective heat transfers during solid-fluid interface, nat-
temperature, flowed through the coaxial cylinder and the energy
ural convection inside the liquid region of PCM containment or
carried by the HTF was absorbed partly by the PCM. During the
effective thermal conductivity. Moreover, The temperature distri-
discharging process, the HTF fluid was reversed. They concluded
bution along the spatial coordinate of the PCM containment is
that the rates of charging and discharging processes in the LHTES
influenced by the natural convection in the melt layer during
could be significantly improved by employing multiple PCMs with
melting. The effect of natural convection has been investigated
different melting temperatures instead of a single PCM. Moreover,
using CFD via two approaches called PRESTO scheme and power
implementing multiple PCMs in LHTES units resulted in a large
law scheme. These schemes helps to discretized the momentum
reduction of the outlet HTF temperature fluctuation.
and energy equation, which interpolates the value of a variable
(Shamsi et al., 2017) presented a 1-D enthalpy model for packed
using the exact solution by convection-diffusion equation.
(Mohammadnejad et al., 2020; Yadav et al., 2017). Based on the
above said model, the numerical studies are performed for the
cascaded PCMs and these results are discussed below.
For instance (Farid and Kanzawa, 1989), presented a one-
dimensional heat conduction model, which could evaluate the
heat flux at the surface of the cylindrical tubes during the melting
and solidification period. The natural convection in the melting
layer was evaluated based on the effective thermal conductivity
and effect of the HTF along the cylindrical capsules were evaluated Fig. 7. Sketch of PCMs with different melting temperatures (Gong and Mujumdar,
based on the heat transfer coefficient empirical formula which 1996b).

7
S. Christopher, K. Parham, A.H. Mosaffa et al.
bed storage using the Van Lewis technique to investigate the
impact of consecutive arrangements of PCMs (3 stage PCMs). The
study was restricted to 4 h charging and discharging cycle. It was
reported that during the charging period, the amount of energy
transfer from the HTF to PCMs was 141.06 MWh and it was
observed that in the middle zone, the quantity of stored energy was
higher compared to the top and bottom PCMs. This is due to the fact
that the heat capacity of the middle PCM was higher compared to
the top and bottom PCMs. On the other hand, during the dis-
charging period, the energy transfer from the PCMs to the HTF was
136.54 MWh and similar distribution trends were observed. The
energy return efficiency of the cascaded LHTES unit was 96.09%,
which was 5.12% more than that of a conventional LHTES unit. The
energy return efficiency was defined as the ratio of total energy
extracted by the HTF to the total energy stored in the PCMs in the
TES system.
(Shaikh and Lafdi, 2006) adapted a two-dimensional control
volume technique to study the combined convection-diffusion
phase transition heat transfer process of a single PCM and multi-
ple PCMs during the charging process. These combined phenomena
have the induced buoyancy motion in the liquid phase, which plays
a major role in the propagation of the melt region interface. The
study included different arrangements of the PCM slabs; series,
parallel and matrix. The effect of these arrangements was investi-
gated on the basis of cumulative energy stored by the PCMs in
comparison to a single PCM. The capability of multiple PCMs having
two and three stages could store 16% and 26% additional cumulative
energy compared to a single PCM at the same conditions. Moreover,
it was revealed that the best arrangement technique for the PCMs
was cascaded or series.
(Aldoss and Rahman, 2014) developed a numerical model to
evaluate the performance of single, double, and triple PCMs in
terms of charging and discharging rates, heat transfer rate and
storage capacity. The model, based on the enthalpy formulation
technique, presented in one dimensional form and included non-
lumped heat transfer and temperature gradient inside the spher-
ical capsules to accommodate the phase change behavior of PCMs.
The heat transfer coefficient of the HTF was calculated using an
empirical correlation which varied along the HTF flow direction The
study indicated that the performance of the cascaded LHTES unit
increased as the number of layers increased. Moreover, using more
than three layers of PCMs for packed bed energy storage did not
provide any significant enhancement.
(Wu M, Xu C, 2016) used a dispersion concentric model for a
one-dimensional setup to study the cyclic behaviors of a non-
cascaded TES unit against three and five layers of cascaded LHTES
units. The model also used an effective thermal conductivity to
predict the natural convection in the PCM. Moreover, the heat
infiltration to the environment were neglected and the phase
transition was considered to occur at different temperatures. The
temperature of the PCM capsules and PCM material were consid-
ered as isothermal due to the fact that molten salt temperature
along the HTF flow direction showed a liner distribution during
charging and discharging processes. The result showed that the
non-cascaded LHTES unit endured poor charging ratio and long
charging duration because of the PCM constraints while the
cascaded LHTES unit, particularly with five layers of PCMs, was
found to have rapid charging and discharging time.
(Yang et al., 2014) used an apparent heat capacity technique to
study the charging characteristics of a cascaded LHTES unit with
water as the HTF. The model used the finite difference method to
simulate the heat transfer properties of the HTF and PCM capsules
and considered the effect of natural convection during the charging
process by using an effective thermal conductivity. The study
specified that for the melting process, the cascaded LHTES storage
8
Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653
endured higher energy transfer efficiencies at the onset of nu-
merical studies. This was a result of the large temperature differ-
ence between the HTF and PCMs. Once the melting process was
completed the temperature difference between the HTF and PCMs
reduced.
As is evident from sections 4 and 6, several studies show the fact
that the implementation of cascaded/multiple PCMs over the
conventional PCMs is advantageous. However, sizing of the
cascaded arrangement of PCMs are random and the majority of the
cascaded LHTES systems were not optimized.
7. Optimal arrangement in cascaded/multiple PCMs
technique
In order to extract or retrieve the maximum amount of energy, it
is necessary to capture the latent heat of each PCM placed in the
storage tank simultaneously and it is possible only if the PCMs are
arranged with the optimum melting temperatures. To optimize the
cascaded LHTES, different approaches have been proposed. For
instance, Aceves et al. (1998)proposed a thermodynamic model to
perform an exergy analysis of an LHTES unit with an infinite
number of PCMs arranged in series configuration. The investigation
was carried out for both the charging and discharging processes
and it was concluded that for achieving the maximum exergy ef-
ficiency, arranging the PCMs melting temperature in an exponen-
tial way along the HTF flow direction during the charging and
discharging phases is demanded.
The effects of the melting temperature difference among the
PCM layers based on the exergy analysis was discussed by
(Watanabe and Kanzawa, 1995). They exhibited that the enhance-
ment in the charging/discharging rates was witnessed while the
temperature band gap between the PCMs of each layer was high
enough. It was also indicated that both the melting/solidification
times started to increase once the temperature band gap was above
some certain limits which were considered as the optimum melting
temperatures. In addition, the optimal temperature band gap be-
tween the PCMs varied based on the inlet HTF temperature and
initial PCM temperature. The correlations for estimating the opti-
mum melting temperatures for high, middle and low PCMs inten-
ded for charging and discharging processes were presented based
on the number of the heat transfer unit (NTU) as follows:
For the charging process
NTU  
TmðtopÞ  TmðlowÞ ¼ T  TmðmiddleÞ (19)
1 þ ðNTU=2Þ HTF;in
 
4h  THTF;in  TmðmiddleÞ
t¼t  (20)
L* rD
For the discharging process
NTU  
TmðtopÞ  TmðlowÞ ¼ T  THTF;in (21)
1 þ ðNTU=2Þ mðmiddleÞ
 
4h  TmðmiddleÞ  THTF;in
t¼t  (22)
L* rD
where L* ¼ L þ cp ðTmðmiddleÞ THTF;in Þ represents the modified
latent heat, including sensible heat; D and r stand for the diameter
of the capsules and the density of the PCM at solid and liquid phase
respectively, and Tm (top, middle, low) demonstrates the melting
temperatures of the PCMs placed at the top, middle, bottom of the
cascaded TES unit. (Cheng and Zhai, 2018a) made an optimization
study for the cylindrical containment in terms of the layers of PCM
S. Christopher, K. Parham, A.H. Mosaffa et al.
and concluded that 24 layers of PCMs could reduce the solidifica-
tion time by 15% compared to a non-cascaded unit. However, using
24 layers of PCMs in the TES unit makes it very difficult to handle in
practice. 3e5 layers of PCMs were recommended, in which the
enhancement of the thermal performances was very close to the 24
layers of PCMs.
(Chirino et al., 2018) presented a parametric study and sensi-
tivity analysis based on a one-dimensional enthalpy transient
model for the cascaded LHTES unit. The parametric analysis was
made through discovering the relation among the objective func-
tions such as LHTES energy efficiency and exergy efficiency and the
thermophysical properties of the PCMs such as latent heat of fusion,
and heat capacity as well as the power plant operating conditions in
terms of storing and retrieving time duration and TES tank struc-
ture. The sensitivity analysis was conducted to explore the sensitive
ranges of those three dimensionless parameters. They claimed that
the results obtained could be useful in designing efficient cascaded
LHTES units for various thermal applications.
(Michels and Pitz-Paal, 2007) used the simulation tool of
Dymola and investigated different arrangements of PCMs in a TES
unit. The results showed that the complexity involved in designing
a cascaded LHTES unit for an operating temperature of more than
100  C was higher in comparison to that of the temperature at
100  C. Additionally, it was demonstrated that the PCMs with
higher latent heat properties along with thermal conductivity more
than 2.0 W/m K were a suitable system for high temperature and
variable heat load applications.
(Ezra et al., 2016) examined a cross-flow tubular air flow heat
exchanger in which the tubes were filled with various PCMs. The
schematic arrangement of various PCMs in the tubular heat
exchanger is illustrated in Fig. 8. It is noted that the colors of the
tube array changed by HTF flow direction, indicating the variations
of melting temperature. The performance of the cascaded LHTES
unit in terms of a normalized melting temperature span was also
studied. It was stated that increment of PCM stages improved the
LHTES unit performance and it became stable after a certain
number of stages.
The used mathematical expression for a normalized melting
temperature span for the cascaded LHTES unit is given in Eq. (23).
Tmmax  Tm
DTm ¼
Tin  Tm
where Tmax is the maximum melting temperature in the storage
bed, Tm is the PCM mean melting temperature and Tin is the inlet
HTF temperature.
(Gong and Mujumdar, 1997) developed a thermodynamic model
to investigate the cascaded LHTES unit. The investigation was car-
ried out for two, three and five PCMs and it was based on a lumped
heat model for the PCM arrangements besides a distributed model
for the HTF assuming the temperature of the HTF varying along the
flow direction. The analytical results showed that the exergy effi-
ciency could be improved significantly by implementing multiple
PCMs compared to a single PCM. In addition, the analytical
Fig. 8. Schematic diagram of air heat exchanger (Ezra et al., 2016).
Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653
outcomes assisted in the selection of PCMs in each layer for
achieving the maximum system efficiency in the practica1 design
of the cascaded LHTES units. The mathematical expression for the
selection of PCMs for any layer of the TES unit is given in the
geometrical progression as follows:
Tm1 Tm2 Tm3 Tm4 T
y y y y:::y mn1 (24)
Tm2 Tm3 Tm4 Tm5 Tmn
(Tao et al., 2014) presented a numerical study to investigate the
impact of the melting temperatures of PCMs on the performance of
a two layer LHTES unit. The optimization of the melting tempera-
ture for matching of a two-layer was studied based on the entransy
dissipation analysis. It was observed that there was an optimal
match of the two-layer PCM melting temperatures to attain the
minimum entransy dissipation rate. Moreover, an equation for the
optimum PCMs melting temperatures was derived, that could be
used to select the optimum range of the PCMs in each layer.
(Xu and Zhao, 2015) developed a relation for indicating the
optimal melting temperature of a cascaded/multiple LHTES unit
with different PCMs based on the entransy dissipation model. The
following assumptions were considered: steady state conditions for
phase change heat transfer, conduction heat transfer by the PCMs
were ignored and the multi-layer PCMs were all arranged along the
HTF flow direction (one-dimensional flow). To predict the thermal
behavior of multiple storage units precisely it was necessary to take
into account that the conduction heat transfer within the PCMs was
transient.
Later (Wang et al., 2017), used a similar approach but considered
the transient heat conduction inside the PCMs. In this study, a two-
dimensional model for multiple PCMs in the slab LHTES unit was
developed and the performance of the LHTES system having mul-
tiple PCMs arranged in a two dimensional array was optimized by
using an entransy dissipation model. It was concluded that the use
of the optimized multiple PCMs arrangements in a two dimensional
array made PCMs could charge a uniform rate to reduce the PCMs
charging time and stabilize the outlet HTF temperature. In further
analysis, they reported that, the use of optimized multiple PCMs
arranged in an infinite two dimensional could achieve maximum
performance for the slab LHTES unit through attaining a simulta-
(23) neous melting process to decrease the thermal resistance between
HTF and PCMs.
(Xu and Zhao, 2017a, 2017b) investigated the performance of a
cascaded LHTES unit having an arbitrary number of stages under
steady and unsteady HTF inlet temperatures based on the entransy
dissipation viewpoint. According to the entransy dissipation theory,
optimal PCMs and HTF temperature would be linear along with the
TES unit.
(Xu and Zhao, 2019) presented a thermodynamic irreversibility
and combined heat transfer rate model to optimize the cascaded
LHTES unit performance based on the entransy and entropy ana-
lyses. It was reported that the value obtained from the exergy
optimization were close to the practical values.
In a similar study, the entransy dissipation theory was used by
(Li et al., 2019) to optimize the cascaded LHTES system for cooling
applications. The study concluded that 3 to 6 layers of PCMs were
the optimum numbers of a practical purpose.
The most conspicuous observation to emerge from the data
observation comparison was from Sections 4, 6 and 7 are the most
of the works have been conducted with arbitrarily selected mate-
rial. This implies that further research is needed to examine the
thermal performance of LHTES system with real time PCMs of
various arrangements.
9
S. Christopher, K. Parham, A.H. Mosaffa et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653

8. Effect of operational parameters, containment geometry

and type of heat exchanger on the performance cascaded
LHTES system

In order to design an efficient cascaded LHTES system, many

parameters are to be considered such as containment type, heat
exchanger type and the effect of input operational parameters are
discussed in the following sections.

8.1. Influence of the operational parameters

Fig. 9. Schematic diagram of the cold cascaded TES unit (Mosaffa et al., 2013).

The influence of the input parameters on the cascaded LHTES

has a significant effect on heat transfer rate. For designing sys-
the encapsulated PCMs depends on the shape used. In this section,
tematic cascaded LHTES units, it is important to consider the effect
the performance of three different encapsulations comprising of
of input parameters such as HTF mass flow rate and inlet temper-
spherical, cylinder and rectangular with cascaded LHTES systems
ature on the system performance. In this section, the major ob-
for various test conditions are discussed.
servations on the effect of input parameters on the cascaded LHTES
(Mosaffa et al., 2013) developed a numerical simulation by
performance are discussed (Wang et al., 2016). numerically inves-
COMSOL multi-physics to study the performance enhancement of a
tigated the influence of the mass flow rate and inlet temperature of
free cooling system in an LHTES unit using three combinations of
HTF on the charging performance of the cascaded LHTES unit. It was
PCMs. The LHTES system consisted of PCM slabs separated by a
reported that by increasing both mass flow rate and the HTF inlet
rectangular channel for the HTF to pass along as shown in Fig. 9.
temperature, the duration of the charging time could be shortened.
CaCl2. H2O, Paraffin C18, and RT25 were used as the PCMs. It was
A mathematical model based on an energy equation was
shown that the optimized LHTES system by the PCMs combination
developed by (Adine and El Qarnia, 2009) to examine the influence
of CaCl2.6H2O and RT25 provided a COP of 7.0 for Tabriz climate
of the mass flow rate and inlet temperature of HTF on the thermal
conditions. The obtained COP was better than that of a conventional
performance of a shell and tube heat exchanger. It was witnessed
air conditioning unit.
that 2 stage PCMs with a low mass flow rate (104 kg/s) offered the
(Aldoss and Rahman, 2014) compared the thermal behavior of a
maximum energy storage efficiency. However, once the mass flow
conventional LHTES by multiple PCMs within a packed bed storage
rate reached the moderate value of 103 kg/s it was required to
system by employing PCMs in a spherical containment. Multiple
keep the inlet temperature by 55  C to achieve the effective
PCMs offered higher performance over the traditional LHTES in the
performance.
charging and discharging processes. Additionally, increasing the
(Cheng and Zhai, 2018b) carried out a numerical study to
number of stages by more than 3 PCMs did not provide any sig-
examine the influence of inlet temperature of HTF and mass flow
nificant enhancement on thermal performance.
rate on a three-layer cold cascaded LHTES for the solidification
(Wang et al., 1999a) described the benefits of employing the
process. The PCMs used were Capric-Lauric acid eutectic with 10%,
cascaded/multiple PCMs in a new dimension. They projected a
6% and 2% mole fractions of Oleic acid and their melting tempera-
novel idea of Homogeneous Phase Change Process (HPCP), where a
ture were 13  C, 14.5  C and 17  C and latent heat was 90.9 kJ/kg,
phase change occurred simultaneously throughout the PCM as
109.7 kJ/kg and 127.2 kJ/kg, respectively. The flow rate used in the
shown in Fig. 10. A perfect homogenous PCM cannot be attained in
solidification process ranged from 50 to 250 l/h and the inlet HTF
real applications. It was proposed that if PCMs were arranged in
temperature varied from 6 to 11  C. When the mass flow rate
such a way, the phase change distribution could be in a parabolic
decreased for a given inlet temperature, the three PCMs system
form, and the process was considered as homogeneous. It was also
reduced the charging rate drastically. Therefore, the charging rate
specified that, with an HPCP, the storage system could be charged/
of the cold cascaded LHTES unit was enhanced only by the low inlet
discharged with a uniform rate. Based on the abovementioned
temperature and the high mass flow rate of the HTF (Mosaffa et al.,
method, they investigated the complete phase change time
2013). theoretically analyzed the effect of the HTF inlet temperature
required for multiple PCMs with cylindrical, spherical and rectan-
and mass flow rate on the charging time of a cascaded LHTES unit
gular containment using one-dimensional HPCP equation. Then the
based on the free cooling concept. It was observed that for the free
obtained results were compared over a single PCM with similar
cooling effect, the air flow rate had a huge impact on charging time
containments. A complete phase change time of HPCP resulted in
compared to the inlet HTF temperature (Hussain, 2018). Investi-
gated the discharging characteristics of the single PCM and multi-
ple PCMs at various inlet HTF velocities. Air was used as the HTF
while the employed PCMs were a set of paraffin waxes with
different melting temperatures in series arrangement by the air
velocities of 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10 m/s, respectively. The experimental
results proved that the increase of the velocity led to the reduction
of the solidification time for both systems. This was due to the fact
that a high velocity provided more flow rates of HTF passing
through the PCM and speeding the process.

8.2. Multiple/cascaded PCMs techniques in rectangular, cylindrical

and spherical encapsulations

The main objective of encapsulation is to improve the thermal

performance of PCMs in terms of heat transfer rate due to its
inherent low thermal conductivity. However, the performance of Fig. 10. Temperature profile of PCMs during the charging processes.

10
S. Christopher, K. Parham, A.H. Mosaffa et al.
60%, 50%, 33% decrease for spherical, cylindrical and flat plate
containments, respectively.
8.3. Arrangement of PCMs with different types of heat exchangers
The thermal performance of cascaded LHTES systems mainly
depends on the melting temperature of the selected PCMs besides
their arrangements. In this section, an overview of the configura-
tions of PCMs owning to several types of heat exchangers is carried
out (Kurnia et al., 2013). studied the charging and discharging
characteristics of U tubes, the ones with inline fins arrangement,
staggered fins arrangements and festoon design arrangements by
placing a single PCM. They reported that the festoon design showed
enhanced performance compared to those of other flow arrange-
ments. They also introduced multiple PCMs techniques and
different arrangements to improve the heat transfer within the
festoon design as shown in Fig. 11. It was observed that the festoon
design with Case 4 arrangement could improve the heat transfer
rate compared to those of other three arrangements.
(Wang et al., 2015) designed and developed a heat exchanger
with a zigzag configuration for the multiple PCM arrangements as
shown in Fig. 12. A 2-D mathematical model was developed to
investigate the charging behavior of the PCMs by means of FLUENT
software. The PCMs melting temperature for each stage of the heat
exchanger was selected based on Eq. (25). Three PCMs with the
temperature band gaps of DT ¼ 20, 40, 60, 80, 90, 100 K were
considered and the results were compared to that of DT ¼ 0 K for a
single PCM. It was concluded that the use of multiple PCMs with a
larger temperature band gap provided a notable enhancement in
the charging process. Additionally, by manipulating the PCMs mass
ratio for each layer based on the driving potential of the HTF could
make PCMs charge more rapidly and attain the enhanced perfor-
mance during the charging process.
DT
TPCM 1  TPCM 2 ¼ TPCM 2  TPCM 3 ¼
2 It is interesting to note that the selection of right band gap
where DT was the temperature difference between PCMs and was
measured in Kelvin.
Fig. 11. Schematic arrangements of PCMs in festoon flow arrangements (Kurnia et al.,
2013).
Fig. 12. Zigzag arrangement of multiple PCMs (Wang et al., 2015).
Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653
Fig. 13. Arrangements of PCMs in the frustum shaped unit (Hu et al., 2015).
(Fang and Chen, 2007) numerically studied the performance of
PCMs in the shell and tube arrangement in terms of the melted
fraction, stored energy and outlet HTF temperature. It was observed
that the PCM melting fraction and the temperature band gap be-
tween the PCM layers played a critical role in the thermal perfor-
mance of the storage unit. Therefore, the selection of PCMs for
different layers had a vital role in the performance enhancement of
the storage unit. A novel frustum shaped model was examined by
(Hu et al., 2015) and the charging characteristics of four different
arrangements of PCMs were studied. The HTF flowed from the
bottom portion and exited from the top portion of the TES unit, as
shown in Fig. 13. Among the four different arrangements, the
frustum shaped container filled with PCMs and arranged in the
increasing order of the melting temperature from top to bottom
attained faster charging compared to other arrangements. For the
above-enhanced setup, they explored the effect of PCMs quantities
and demonstrated that five layers of PCMs were efficient for the
frustum shaped containment. In addition, this type of arrangement
was quite effective where a small melting temperature difference
(25) between the PCMs was needed.
temperature of PCMs varies based on the HTF mass flow rate and
inlet temperature, mass ratio of the PCMs, geometry of contain-
ment and type of heat exchanger used. In addition, this makes the
design approach as a huge challenge.
9. Performance enhancement of energy components through
implementing the cascaded LHTES technique
Considering the enthralling advantages of the cascaded LHTES,
the latent heat storage employing cascaded PCMs has increasingly
attracted attention over the past years. These configurations of
PCMs have been integrated into various energy components to
improve the overall system performance.
Fig. 14. Schematic arrangement of a compressed air system with four different PCMs
(Tessier et al., 2016) (c ¼ compressor, t ¼ turbine).
11
S. Christopher, K. Parham, A.H. Mosaffa et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653

9.1. Compressed air storage

(Tessier et al., 2016) stated that the integration of a cascaded

LHTES with an adiabatic compressed air energy storage system
could bring down the overall efficiency losses caused by the heat
losses generated during the air storage compression (see Fig. 14).
The melting temperatures of different PCMs were optimized for the
adiabatic compressed air storage based on compression stages and
compression ratio. It was also noticed that the possibility of an
increase in the overall system efficiency of adiabatically com-
pressed air storage by implementing the cascaded technique was
around 85%, while it was 15% over the existing design without
incorporating a cascaded LHTES unit. Fig. 16. Solar heat receiver and PCMs arrangements in a solar receiver (Cui et al., 2003).

9.2. Electronic/electrical cooling

including heat source, heat engine and heat sink. The heat source
consisted of a concentrator and a receiver. The receiver acted as a
The cascaded/multiple PCMs arrangements are further
heat exchanger allowing the incoming solar radiation to convert
extended to the systems without any HTFs targeting electronic
incoming air into hot air and storing heat energy of the PCM from
cooling uses. In these systems, PCMs are arranged in a series format
incoming solar radiation. The asymmetry casing of the receiver,
by a declining trend of their melting points from the hot side of the
surface flux and the temperature difference of the wall surface
wall during the charging process and vice versa during the dis-
caused an inability to the single PCM to charge/discharge at a
charging process. One such investigation was performed by (Wang
uniform rate and this non-uniform rate during the charging and
et al., 1999b) and 25% drop of the phase change time using multiple
discharging processes led to a reduced outlet air temperature and
PCMs/cascaded arrangements over a single PCM unit was reported.
large fluctuations in the outlet air temperature. To resolve the dif-
Dependence of the augmentation of the system performance was
ficulties of incorporating the single PCM of a solar receiver (Cui
based on the used PCMs quantities and in practical applications the
et al., 2003), examined the performance of the Solar Dynamic Po-
number of PCMs could be used in the range of 5e10. On the other
wer Module, by placing multiple PCMs in a solar heat receiver as
hand (Moraga et al., 2016), studied the volumetric heat generated
shown in Fig. 16. The results showed that the multiple PCMs
in lithium-ion batteries by placing different combinations of PCMs
incorporated in a solar receiver, not only enhanced the energy rate
around the batteries. It was shown that the combination of PCMs
but also reduced the fluctuations of the outlet air temperature.
such as capric acid, eicosane and sodium carbonate with a thickness
(Li et al., 2012) presented a finite-time thermodynamic model to
of 5 mm, 2.9 mm and 4.3 mm respectively reduced the maximum
study the performance of a cascaded LHTES unit with two different
temperature of the battery of 21 K compared with a temperature
types of PCMs (melting temperatures of 1150 K and 750 K) using
attained by the battery without placing PCM.
concentrated solar collectors. The results showed that by using the
cascaded arrangement of PCMs as an alternative of a single PCM
9.3. Solar based applications
could increase the overall exergy efficiency from 19.0 to 53.8%
(Teamah et al., 2018). Performed a numerical study on solar col-
9.3.1. Solar PV technology
lectors integrated with the cascaded LHTES system. They construed
PCMs are used for thermal regulation purposes of Building In-
that solar collectors with the cascaded system attained 50%
tegrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) for improving the efficiency of the PV.
reduction in storage volume, compared to the sensible system (Liu
In a similar work (Jun Huang, 2011), studied the performance of
et al., 2015). Investigated the high temperature cascaded shell and
solar PV tandem cells by three different combinations of PCMs,
tube LHTES unit of a solar tower power plant by considering three
namely, RT27 with RT21, RT27 with RT27 and RT31 with RT27 along
PCMs with the melting temperature ranging from 430  C to 550  C
with two different shapes of metal cells as triangle and semicircle
in which s-CO2 was the HTF as shown in Fig. 17. It was reported that
as shown in Fig. 15. The results revealed that a combination of PCM
increasing the number of the PCM layers led to extracting
RT27 with PCM RT21 arranged in the triangular metal cell geometry
maximum sensible energy available in the PCMs.
aided in achieving maximum temperature drop during daily
This result further strengthened the confidence that the
operation, compared to other combinations of PCMs and
cascaded LHTES exhibited improved heat transfer rate with better
geometries.

9.3.2. Solar thermal technology

NASA has developed a unique Solar Dynamic Power Module to
produce 2 kW of electricity, using the closed Brayton cycle system.
The power module system consisted of three major components,

Fig. 15. Schematic diagram of the PV/PCM system with different metal cells (Jun Fig. 17. Schematic arrangements of the cascaded shell and tube LHTES system (Liu
Huang, 2011). et al., 2015).

12
S. Christopher, K. Parham, A.H. Mosaffa et al.
charging/discharging characteristic and overall efficiency. In addi-
tion, these cascaded LHTES technique have the potential to be
implemented in various applications for different temperature
ranges.
10. Multiple/cascaded thermal energy storage with other
enhancement techniques
Combining the cascaded LHTES system with other enhancement
techniques could assist in attaining a further intensification in the
overall thermal performance of the LHTES system. For instance
(Shabgard et al., 2012), developed a thermal network model to
investigate the heat transfer rate of a cascaded and non-cascaded
LHTES with gravity assisted heat pipes. The considered operating
temperatures were within the range of 280  Ce290  C and HTF of
therminol VP-1. It was noted that the system with the cascaded
LHTES unit could enhance the 10% more heat transfer rate during
the charging and the discharging processes compared to a non-
cascaded LHTES (Tian and Zhao, 2013). made a theoretical study
to examine the overall thermal performance of a single PCM unit,
multiple PCMs unit and metal foam enhanced multiple PCMs unit.
They stated that replacing the single PCM unit with multiple PCMs
aided to achieve an improved heat transfer rate of 30% and achieved
a further 2e7 times enhancement by placing metal foams in the
multiple PCM unit (Tao and He, 2015). Conducted a comprehensive
work to study the potential improvement of a shell and tube heat
exchanger incorporated with three different enhancement
Fig. 18. Schematic arrangement of a cascaded thermal energy storage unit (Farid et al.,
1990).
Fig. 19. Direct constant LHTES system with two different PCMs (Farid and Khalaf, 1994).
13
Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653
techniques, including smooth tube along with single PCM, an in-
ternal helically-finned enhanced tube along with single PCM and
internal helically-finned enhanced tube along with multiple PCMs.
The results demonstrated that the incorporation of an internally
helically finned enhancement tube along with multiple PCMs could
reduce the charging time and augment the storage capacity of the
TES unit (Seeniraj and Lakshmi Narasimhan, 2008). Investigated the
performance of two different augmentation methods, including the
multi-PCM techniques and adding extended surface on the con-
ventional LHTES unit. The results showed that multiple PCMs could
exhibit a constant outlet temperature for a longer time as compared
to a single PCM unit with an extended surface.
These results offered compelling evidence for that cascaded
LHTES system enhances the thermal performance when integrated
with other enhancement techniques such as extended surface, heat
pipes, and meat foams. Therefore, the cascaded LHTES system with
other enhancement techniques can be considered as a promising
technique.
11. Experimental studies
There are very few experimental investigations that have been
performed to figure out the potential of cascaded LHTES systems
over conventional systems (Farid et al., 1990). made an experi-
mental evaluation of the thermal performance of three commercial
PCMs arranged in series configuration with the melting tempera-
tures of 44  C, 53  C and 64  C and the latent heat fusion of 167 kJ/
kg, 200 kJ/kg and 210 kJ/kg respectively, using air as the HTF. For the
evaluation purpose, the experiments were conducted with a single
PCM owning a melting temperature of 53  C. The results showed
that at 15% increase in the heat transfer rate during the latent heat
period was observed by using multiple PCMs. Fig. 18 depicts the
schematic experimentation of a cascaded LHTES system (Farid and
Khalaf, 1994). Investigated the performance characteristics of an
LHTES system through direct contact of the HTF (kerosene) with
two different PCMs of sodium carbonate decahydrate and sodium
thiosulphate pentahydrate. During the charging process, hot
kerosene was directed to sodium thiosulphate pentahydrate placed
in the first column followed by partially cooled kerosene bubbles
flown to the second column consisting of sodium carbonate deca-
hydrate. The flow direction was reversed during the discharging
period. The use of two different salts with different crystallization
temperatures improved the heat transfer rate significantly by
allowing the system to operate in the latent heat storage phase for a
longer period. Fig. 19 shows the operation process of a direct con-
tact LHTES system with two different PCMs.
S. Christopher, K. Parham, A.H. Mosaffa et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653

(Yuan et al., 2018) conducted a comprehensive experimental

study to determine the potential of a cascaded LHTES system over a
non-cascaded thermal energy storage system for high temperature
molten salt. The charging and discharging performance of the
LHTES was evaluated by using different inlet temperatures and flow
rates of the HTF. The quantities of the cumulative energy charged
and retrieved from the cascaded TES system were respectively
39.51% and 35.74% higher than the non-cascaded TES tank. On the
other hand, the amounts of energy stored and retrieved per time
from the cascaded TES system were 38.40% and 27.02% more than
the non-cascaded TES system, correspondingly. Fig. 21 presents a
schematic representation of the cascaded LHTES system.
(Hussain, 2018) designed and tested the performance of an
LHTES system with single PCM, multiple PCMs and multiple PCMs
with metal foams at various porosities setups using air as the HTF
(Fig. 22). The results showed that engaging metal foams in the
cascaded unit led to a good fluidity of the liquid PCM and a wide
specific contact surface area between the ligament of the metal
 et al., 2015).
Fig. 20. TES tank pattern used to conduct the experimentation (Peiro foams and PCM, which facilitated to achieve better uniform
charging and discharging rates in comparison to the cascaded unit
(Wang et al., 2001) investigated the charging characteristics of without using metal foams.
cylindrical capsules occupied by three different PCMs of stearic acid
(64.2  C), sliced paraffin (55.5  C) and lauric acid (41.8  C). The
charging performance was evaluated by changing the inlet HTF
temperature and it was detected that the charging rate of three
PCMs enhanced noticeably as compared to a single PCM.
 et al., 2015) experimentally analyzed the advantages of
(Peiro
implementing multiple PCMs over a single PCM on a pilot plant
scale. Two PCMs (d-mannitol and hydroquinone) possessing the
melting temperatures of 150 and 200  C were employed. Three
different case studies including single PCM with d-mannitol and
hydroquinone, and multiple PCMs included d-mannitol and hy-
droquinone, were investigated. Fig. 20 shows the illustrative dia-
gram of their TES tank. It was reported that the use of multiple
PCMs led to a superior uniformity of the outlet HTF temperature
and a better heat transfer rate during the total operating hour.
Moreover, multiple PCMs could boost by 19.36% effectiveness
compared to a single PCM arrangement. Fig. 22. Experimental setup used for conducting experimentation (Hussain, 2018).

Fig. 21. Cascaded LHTES system for higher temperature (Yuan et al., 2018).

14
S. Christopher, K. Parham, A.H. Mosaffa et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653

Table 1
Correlations for cascaded LHTES systems.

Reference Parameters Correlations

Accumulated QmultiplePCM Q_ multiplePCM Tin  Tout Qdischarge

Chiu and Ac ¼ ; TP ¼ ; hPCM ¼ ;Q ¼
capacity (Ac). QsinglePCM Q_ singlePCM Tin  TPCM avg ðdischarge= chargeÞ Qcharge
Martin Thermal power
(2013) rate (Tp)
PCM efficiency
(hPCM)
Discharge and
charge power
rate
comparison
(Qdischarge/
charge)
8 9
Xu et al.
Outlet < Toutlet 2 ¼ Tm1 þ ðTinlet 1  Tm1 ÞeN1 =
temperature of Toutlet 3 ¼ Tm2 þ ðTinlet 2  Tm2 ÞeN2
(2016). : ;
the HTF during Toutlet 4 ¼ Tm3 þ ðTinlet 3  Tm3 ÞeN3 Charging
charging 8 N3
9
< Toutlet 3 ¼ Tm3 þ ðTinlet 1  Tm3 Þe =
(Tcharging HTF) Toutlet 3 ¼ Tm2 þ ðTinlet 2  Tm2 ÞeN2
and discharging : ;
Toutlet 4 ¼ Tm1 þ ðTinlet 3  Tm1 ÞeNw:p1 Discharging
(Tdischarging HTF) Estored ¼ ma cp:a ðToutlet 1  Tinlet 2 Þ½1  Tamb =Tm1  þ m_ a cp:a ðToutlet2  Tinlet 3 Þ½1  Tamb =Tm2  þ m_ a cp:a ðToutlet 3  Tinlet 4 Þ½1  Tamb =Tm3 
_
process, exergy
Edischarged ¼ m_ w cp:w ðToutlet 4  Tinlet 3 Þ½1  Tamb =Tm1  þ m_ w cp:w ðToutlet 3  Tinlet 2 Þ½1  Tamb =Tm2  þ m_ w cp:w ðToutlet 2  Tinlet 1 Þ½1  Tamb =Tm3 
rate stored
Estored
(Estored) and hex;charge ¼
ðTinlet 1  Te Þ  Te lnðTinlet 1 =Tamb Þ
discharged
ðT  Tw1 Þ  Te lnðTw4 =Tw1 Þ
(Edischarged), hex;dischrage ¼ w4
Edischarge
exergy rate
delivered at hoverall ¼ hex;charging  hex;discharging
each stage in
the storage
tank
(Edischarged),
exergy
charging and
discharging
efficiency and
overall exergy
efficiency for
combined
charging and
discharging for
three stage
cascaded
configuration
(adiabatic
conditions).
Arrangement of DT
Wang et al. TPCM 1  TPCM 2 ¼ TPCM 2  TPCM 3 ¼
PCMs (TPCM 1> 2
(2015) TPCM 2> TPCM 3)
Arrangement of Tm1 Tm2 Tm3 Tm4 T
Gong and y y y y:::y mn1
PCMs Tm2 Tm3 Tm4 Tm5 Tmn
Mujumdar (geometrical
(1997) progression)
Arrangement of For charging:
Watanabe
PCMs (NTU NTU
and TmðtopÞ  TmðlowÞ ¼ ðT  TmðmiddleÞ Þ
method) 1 þ ðNTU=2Þ HTF;in
Kanzawa For discharging:
(1995) NTU
TmðtopÞ  TmðlowÞ ¼ ðT  THTF;in Þ
1 þ ðNTU=2Þ mðmiddleÞ

(Zhao et al., 2018) experimentally evaluated the charging char-
acteristics of a three stage LHTES occupied by three different types
of PCMs based on the first and second laws of thermodynamics and
entransy theory. Hot air with high pressure and temperature was
directed through the three different PCMs in retro. The results
exhibited that the solid to liquid transition temperatures of the
PCMs in each stage were not homogenous due to the poor heat
transfer and large temperature band gap of PCMs for each stage.
However, placing PCMs with a small temperature band gap could
enhance the first and second law efficiencies besides the entransy
storage efficiency.
Very limited works are experimentally carried out on the per-
formance of the cascaded LHTES system. It is recommended that
15
further research should be undertaken experimentally to study the
impact of cascaded LHTES system on renewable energy sources and
building sector in terms of mass flow rate, inlet HTF temperature,
type of PCMs and mass fraction of PCMs.
Table 1 illustrates some important mathematical correlations
employed for evaluating the system performance and PCM distri-
bution in the cascaded LHTES configuration.
12. Economic analysis
The economic analysis for the cascaded latent heat storage
system is not available in the literature and it is an important issue
to be considered. However, available literature for the economic
S. Christopher, K. Parham, A.H. Mosaffa et al.
analysis for conventional PCM (single PCM) is extensively pre-
sented. Recently (Maatallah et al., 2019), made an economic anal-
ysis on PV and water based PV thermal system.-PCM panel (PVT-PV
PCM/water). It was observed that PVT-PV PCM/water system had
27% larger lifecycle conversion efficiency compared to a conven-
tional PV system. Similar studies were conducted by (Hossain et al.,
2019) using PV/T- PCM. They exhibited that the system was more
economical and attractive than the conventional PV system for long
operation run and thus, it is beneficial for the household applica-
tions to use the solar hot water which can endure up to a duration
of 5 years.
(Chopra et al., 2020) examined the economic viability of evac-
uated tube solar collectors (ETC) with PCM and without PCM. The
results of the techno economic analysis showed that the cost of hot
water production per liter by ETC with PCM was less than that of
ETC without PCM and electric geyser. The payback periods of ETC
with and without PCM were 3.56 and 4.12 years respectively.
Once more, to portray the economic benefits of cascaded LHTES
systems, it is necessary to conduct a comparative study between
cascaded PCMs and conventional PCM with various energy sources
in terms of investment costs, operation costs, payback period,
maintenance costs, CO2 emission rate and material replacement
costs.
13. Conclusion
The current paper provided a literature survey demonstrating
the importance of cascaded/multiple PCMs implementation tech-
niques in LHTES units. Based on the carried out assessment, the
main findings are summarized as follows:

Replacing single PCMs with a cascaded arrangement of PCMs in
the LHTES system offers a better enhancement in the heat
transfer rate in the LHTES system as well as overall system ef-
ficiency. In addition, the cascaded technique is the only method
to enhance both the energy storage and power density without
altering the thermophysical properties of PCMs.

The energy efficiency and exergy efficiency of the cascaded
LHTES systems during the charging process could be enhanced
by maintaining a minimum charging time difference between
the adjacent PCMs placed in the TES system.

The performance of the cascaded LHTES system mainly depends
on thermo physical properties of the PCMs such as phase tran-
sition temperature, PCMs mass ratio, high heat capacity, thermal
conductivity and latent heat. From the studies it is stated that
the high latent heat and heat capacity with thermal conductivity
of greater than 2 W/m K and reduced ratio of liquid thermal
conductivity to solid thermal conductivity (<1) could enhance
the thermal performance. Furthermore, for commercialization
of cascaded LHTES systems these factors should be taken into
account in the system optimization.

In comparison with various heat exchangers used for cascaded
LHTES systems, the packed bed energy storage seems to be a
suitable method due to the fact that it is easy to arrange and
pack the PCMs in an optimum way. The most preferred geom-
etry containment used in the packed bed energy storage system
is the cylindrical containment.

The entransy dissipation theory is considered as an effective
method for identifying optimal values of HTF and PCM tem-
perature, type of PCMs and stage number. However, the most
important limitation lies in the fact that creating a model using
an entransy concept and problem solving is quite complex. On
the other hand, the exergy technique is suitable for practical
design and optimization of cascaded LHTES systems.
16
Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124653

Cascaded technique has the potential to be implemented within
various temperature ranges such as sub-ambient temperatures,
ambient temperature (20e28  C), moderate temperatures
(40e200  C) and high temperature (>200  C).

Since it is a big issue to melt/solidify the different PCMs placed
in the TES system simultaneously from the practical point of
view, it can be handled by placing individual PCMs through
merely a parabolic distribution.

It is interesting to note that the optimum band gap temperature
of PCMs varies based on the HTF inlet temperature, mass flow
rate, mass ratio of the PCMs, and type of heat exchanger used for
a given application. This makes the design process quite chal-
lenging. It is recommended to use a stage number varying from
3 to 6, and it can be extended to 10 based on the application.
However, a stage number above 10 would give very minimal
enhancement in the thermal performance.

In general, to the outcomes of the current work suggest that
cascaded LHTES is one of the most promising methods in
comparison to other enhancement techniques aimed for inter-
mittent or seasonal energy sources and for augmenting fast
storage during the charging and discharging processes.
14. Recommendations and future development
One of the important prospects in the heat transfer enhance-
ment of cascaded LHTES systems is the cascaded melting temper-
ature. This technique is employed to capture the latent heat at each
layer simultaneously in the TES unit during the charging and dis-
charging processes. As mentioned before, there are some solutions
for concurrent melting/solidification processes, but getting com-
mercial PCMs for the above matched temperature distribution is
still a challenge and requires more investigations. On the other
hand, considering the fact that, most of the carried out research
studies on cascaded LHTES systems, are numerical based with
certain assumptions, and bearing in mind that the thermos-
physical properties of PCMs are still not formulated accurately,
there is a necessity to conduct more experimental studies on
cascaded LHTES systems at various temperature ranges to analyze
the impact of performance parameters such as mass flow rate, HTF
temperature, type of PCMs and mass fraction of PCMs. As an
example, there is no experimental work to define a percentage
enhancement by comparing the optimum PCM arrangement for
any random PCM arrangement and single PCM. Moreover, a large
number of experimental studies and their annual reports are
desirable to predict the economic benefits of cascaded LHTES sys-
tem over conventional LHTES system (single PCM) in various en-
ergy sources in terms of investment cost, operation cost, payback
period, maintenance cost, CO2 emission rate and material
replacement cost. The last but not the least, in solar PV, batteries
and electronic system various innovative design have been pro-
posed using PCMs for the aim of reducing heat generation to
enhance the life cycle and system performance, however the
studies associated with employing the cascaded PCMs are very
limited and further studies are demanded.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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