The following activities will be performed in five Subtasks:

Subtask A: Material Characterization and Database

A.1 Standardized measurement procedures and round robin tests

A.1.1 Thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity of liquids, solids, and packed beds
A.1.2 Specific heat capacity of powdery materials

A.1.3 Enthalpy change due to sorption or any chemical reaction
A.1.4 Thermal expansion, density, and viscosity determination

A.2 CTES Materials database and knowledge platform

A.2.1 Maintenance, filling, and expansion of the current database based on the results of round robin tests, project data of contributors, and additional available literature data
A.2.2 Further development of the knowledge base on the website by adding 1) the developed measurement procedures from the preceding and the current tasks and 2) references to available standards focusing on measurement procedures, nomenclature, abbreviations, additional know-how (e.g., on sample preparation)

Subtask B: CTES Material Improvement

B.1 Exploring potential materials for CTES

B.1.1 Sorption materials (e.g., natural zeolites, hierarchical aluminophosphates, ZIFs, clays)
B.1.2 Reacting materials (e.g., hydroxides, hydrated salts, carbonates, mixed oxides, calcium aluminates)
B1.3 Phase change materials (e.g., Inorganic, organic, and inorganic-organic hybrid materials)

B.2 Improving the performances and increasing versatility: Advanced composites for CTES and best conditioning

B.2.1 Increase energy storage capacity
B.2.2 Enhance heat and mass transport properties
B.2.3 Best materials conditioning for integration into applications

Subtask C: State of Charge – SoC Determination

C.1 Inventory of promising material properties and related measurement techniques
C.2 Collection of experimental and numerical proof of concepts
C.3 Description of application requirements

Subtask D: Stability of PCM and TCM

D.1 Reviewing CTES material degradation mechanisms

PCM: salt hydrates, polymers (incl. PEGs), esters, fatty acids, sugar alcohols, paraffins, salts, metals, plastic crystals
TCM: zeolites, salt hydrates, ammoniates, aluminophosphates, MOFs, oxides/hydroxides, carbonates, redox-active metal oxides

D.2 Developing recommendations for stability testing

D.2.1 Recommendations for PCM
D.2.2 Recommendations for TCM

D.3 Performing stability round robin tests

D.3.1 Tests on PCM
D.3.2 Tests on TCM

Subtask E: Effective Component Performance with Innovative Materials

E.1 Material-component interaction performance indicators
E.2 Experiments on material – component interactions, analysis of the state of design
E.3 Performance and design of components

E.3.1 Realistic performance chart
E.3.2 Draft of a ‘Design best practice handbook’ for components and systems