LAUSR

Thermal energy storage (TES) plays an important role in improving efficiency of both conventional and renewable energy systems. The phase change material (PCM) based latent heat TES (LHTES) shows great potential due to the large heat storage density and nearly isothermal feature. The phase change slurry (PCS) is a mixture of solid PCM particles and liquid carrying fluid, which can be adopted as both the heat transfer fluid (HTF) and energy storage medium. The 1-component slurry such as slush hydrogen, slush nitrogen and ice slurry, as well as clathrate hydrate slurry (CHS) are shellless PCSs, in which the mass transfer between the solid PCM particles and liquid carrying fluid occurs during phase change process. The present two-part review surveys the investigations of such shellless PCSs in recent years. This paper is the first part of the review, which makes a brief introduction of the preparation methods and properties of each type of the PCS and a comprehensive summary of the applications of these PCSs in different fields. The second part is focused on the thermo-fluidic characteristics of the shellless PCSs.