The Cooling Characteristics of Clathrate Compound according to Concentration of TMA

The ice storage system uses water for low temperature latent heat storage. However, a refrigerator capacity is increased and COP is decreased due to supercooling of water in the course of phase change from solid to liquid. This study investigates the cooling characteristics of the TMA-water clathrate compound including TMA (Tri-methyl-amine, $(CH_3)_3N$) of $20{\sim}25wt%$ as a low temperature latent heat storage material. The results showed that the phase change temperature and the specific heat is increased and the supercooling degree is decreased as the weight concentration of TMA increased. Especially, the clathrate compound containing TMA 25 wt% has the average phase change tempera ture of $5.8^{\circ}C$, the supercooling degree of $8.0^{\circ}C$ and the specific heat of 3.499 kJ/kgK in the cooling process. This can lead to reduction of operation time of refrigerator in low temperature latent heat storage system and efficiency improvement of refrigerator COP and overall system. Therefore, energy saving and improvement of utilization efficiency are expected.