Overview

• Led by materials scientist Patrick Shamberger, Texas A&M researchers are refining salt hydrates and nucleation particles to improve how thermal storage freezes and thaws at target temperatures for modern HVAC systems.
• New findings build on a 2024 Journal of Physical Chemistry C study that examined nucleation behavior, with recent tests indicating barium-based particles can trigger more reliable freezing.
• The team is tackling phase segregation—a key failure mode in salt hydrates—by probing the thermodynamics of composition and density changes to enable reversible cycling over decades.
• Ice batteries shift cooling load by freezing at night and releasing cold during the day to ease grid peaks and lower costs, yet large installations can require freezing roughly 500,000 pounds of ice nightly, making material efficiency critical.
• Real-world use is growing but remains limited; New York City’s 30‑story Eleven Madison building employs an ice-storage system, and provider Trane has said it can cut cooling costs by up to 40% in such deployments.