The university has published a chapter in a new book with the title «Advanced Ceramic Coatings for Energy Applications». ​

The book chapter abstract can be read here

"This chapter focuses on anticorrosive protective coatings on Al-based elements of​ thermal energy storage (TES) units working with phase change materials (PCM). The main​ challenges of such heat accumulators were discussed, highlighting especially their main​ drawback, which is low thermal conductivity. This feature impairs the charging and​ discharging rates and the overall efficiency of such storage tanks. An opportunity for solving​ this problem was presented – the immersion of spatial metallic structures in the PCM deposit​ that significantly facilitate heat transfer. Nevertheless, working in an aggressive environment​ of molten salts as PCMs requires additional protection of the metal surface against corrosion.​

While giving a brief overview of various protection methods, this work primarily evaluates the​ utilization of plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) oxide layers for this purpose. It​ characterizes PEO coatings for aluminum substrates in details and suggests the possible​ strategies to further improve the performance of these layers in TES applications."​