Dauvergne Jean-Luc, Nikulin Artem, Doppiu Stefania, Palomo Del Barrio Elena
Centre for Cooperative Research on Alternative Energies (CIC energiGUNE), Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Alava Technology Park, Albert Einstein 48, 01510 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain.
Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.
Materials (Basel). 2021 Sep 6;14(17):5110. doi: 10.3390/ma14175110.
The objective of this experimental study was to develop a method to induce crystallization of sugar alcohols using an electric field for its future implementation in latent heat thermal energy storage systems. To better understand the mechanisms behind this approach, the first step of this work was dedicated to the replication, continuation, and consolidation of promising results on erythritol reported by another research group. In the second step, a second experimental configuration, previously used to electrically control the supercooling of other phase change materials, was tested with the same sugar alcohol. For both configurations, the influence of the type of current (DC and AC at different frequencies), its amplitude, and time of exposure were studied. However, none of these tests allowed influencing the crystallization of erythritol. Even if surprising at first glance, the difficulty in reproducing experiments and interpreting the results is not new in the field of electric-field-induced crystallization, as shown in particular by the abundant literature reviews concerning water. Currently, to the best of our knowledge, we consider that electric fields could be an attractive option to initiate and accelerate the crystallization of erythritol, but this solution must be considered with caution.
本实验研究的目的是开发一种利用电场诱导糖醇结晶的方法，以便将来在潜热热能存储系统中应用。为了更好地理解这种方法背后的机制，这项工作的第一步致力于重复、延续并巩固另一个研究小组报告的关于赤藓糖醇的有前景的结果。第二步，用相同的糖醇测试了另一种先前用于电控制其他相变材料过冷度的实验配置。对于这两种配置，研究了电流类型（不同频率的直流电和交流电）、其幅度以及暴露时间的影响。然而，这些测试都未能影响赤藓糖醇的结晶。尽管乍一看令人惊讶，但在电场诱导结晶领域，重复实验和解释结果存在困难并非新鲜事，特别是关于水的大量文献综述表明了这一点。目前，据我们所知，我们认为电场可能是引发和加速赤藓糖醇结晶的一个有吸引力的选择，但必须谨慎考虑这种解决方案。
