Air humidity assisted sorption thermal battery governed by reaction wave model

Abstract Air humidity assisted sorption thermal battery has attracted increasing interests throughout the world for its strong ability to capture atmospheric moisture and the related heating effects. However, the controllable stable output temperature is still unrealized, which hinders the application potential. Here we discover the phenomenon of “reaction wave” happening in the sorption reactor for the first time and accordingly build a “reaction wave” model which sheds light on the mechanism for receiving stable output and provides design criterion for obtaining stable output. To further increase the storage density of sorption thermal battery, we put forward a design strategy of “dual-reactor” and establish a 1.3 ​kWh proof-of-concept prototype, which is able to warm up air from 20 ​°C to 38.1 ​°C for 5.51 ​h, and obtain a storage density of 240 ​kWh/m3 higher than that of previous publications. Therefore, “Reaction wave” model is expected to guide sorbent selection and reactor design.