Electrohydrodynamics (EHD)-enhanced solid-liquid phase change heat transfer: mechanism, influencing factors, synergy technique, challenges, and future opportunities

The issues of climate deterioration and environmental pollution resulting from the excessive exploitation and use of fossil fuels have drawn global attention, making the vigorous development of renewable energy crucial for effectively mitigating the energy crisis. However, renewable energy has the drawbacks of intermittency and volatility. Phase change energy storage (PCES) technology, with its advantages of high energy storage density, safety and reliability, offers a promising solution to effectively alleviate the problem of unstable output of renewable energy. Recent studies have demonstrated the significant potential of electrohydrodynamics (EHD) in enhancing phase change heat transfer, capable of reducing the melting time of phase change materials (PCM) by over 40% while the additional power consumption is only about 2.4% of the heater power. This paper reviews the theoretical mechanisms, influencing factors of EHD-enhanced phase change heat transfer technology, as well as its coupling studies with other heat transfer enhancement technologies, and further discusses the prevailing challenges and technical bottlenecks in its practical application. Importantly, this review highlights potential breakthroughs and future research directions for EHD-enhanced heat transfer, including economic evaluation, multi-technology synergy, performance under extreme environmental conditions, and innovative electrode design strategies. The study concludes that EHD-enhanced heat transfer technology is of great significance for promoting the development of PCES technology and alleviating the energy crisis.