So physically, what's happening when I put in enough energy to melt the PCM, but I constrain the material with a large pressure such that its expansion would result in more work done than the heat energy I put in?
Thanks Dr. Courtney! That makes good sense.
Speaking of this energy imbalance, I noticed that commercial providers rarely provide specifications on acceptable pressures, usually only giving operational limits in terms of temperature. Does this mean that it is fine for all reasonable pressures...
I'm trying to find a Phase Change Material (PCM), but the entire industry is pretty one-minded when it comes to what it should be used for - energy storage. You can see by the wording of the Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-change_material
that they list advantages like...