Relaxation of supercooling of erythritol for latent heat storage

The present paper shows experimental results on physical methods for superc ooling relaxation of erythritol as a phase change material. Solidification behavior of erythritol melt was observed under the experimental conditions using the following 3 energy loadings: 1) ultrasonic irradiation, 2) stirri ng with seeding, and 3) agitation by bubbling. The obtained results have sh own that supercooling relaxation of erythritol during its solidification is possible using any of the 3 cases for choosing energy loading, and that ul trasonic irradiation is most effective among the 3 cases. The effectiveness of ultrasonic irradiation was found to be dependent on ultrasonic power an d on the melt's temperature at which irradiation was initiated. In the case of stirring, the relaxation effect was improved with a small amount of cry stals seeded at about its melting temperature. Effective relaxation was als o obtained by agitating erythritol melt by bubbling of N-2 gas at room temp erature compared with pre-heated gas.