The M-TES (Metallic Phase Change Composite Materials for Thermal Energy Management) project, led by Politecnico di Milano and funded by the European Innovation Council (EISMEA) within the Pathfinder Action “Integrated Medium and Long Term Energy Storage”, has started.

Over the next three years, the project will address energy saving challenges by focusing on heat recovery, storage and management in processes where energy is produced or reused in the form of heat.

The aim is to develop sustainable and cost-effective materials for the storage and management of thermal energy by exploiting the heat stored or released during the phase transition of phase change materials (PCMs). The innovation is the development of metallic phase change materials (m-PCMs), in which structural metal phases and PCMs are integrated into a single material. These m-PCMs offer both thermal functionalities and structural mechanical properties. In addition, the project will explore the manufacturing phase of these materials to achieve shapes and performance characteristics suitable for future applications in the energy and industrial sectors.

The research is coordinated by Professor Elisabetta Gariboldi, with Andrea Lucchini as deputy coordinator, and involves researchers from the Department of Mechanics and the Department of Energy. The M-TES consortium also includes the National Research Council (ICMATE), the Łukasiewicz – Krakow Institute of Technology (Poland) and the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg (Germany).