###### Abstract  
Thermal energy storage (TES) systems play a very important part in addressing the energy crisis. Therefore, numerous researchers are striving to improve the efficiency of TES tanks. The TES technology has the potential to reach new heights when the biological behavior of nature is incorporated into the design of TES tanks. By mimicking the branched vein pattern observed in plants and animals, the heat transfer fluid (HTF) tube of a TES tank can enhance the heat transfer surface area, hence improving its thermal efficiency without the need to add other enhancements of heat transfer methods. Accordingly, in this study, a unique additive-manufacturing-based bio-inspired TES tank was designed, developed, and tested. A customized testing setup was used to assess the bio-inspired TES tank's thermal performance. A comparison was made between the bio-inspired TES tank and a conventional shell-and-tube TES tank. The latent TES system's thermal performance was significantly enhanced by the biomimetic approach for the design of a TES tank, even before the optimization of its design. The results showed that, compared to the shell-and-tube TES tank, the bio-inspired TES tank had a higher discharging rate and needed 52% less time to release the stored heat. biomimetic design; thermal energy storage (TES); phase change materials (FCMs); experimental study; additive manufacturing +
Footnote †: journal: Applied Sciences  
**Citation**: [PERSON]; [PERSON]; [PERSON] [PERSON]; [PERSON]; [PERSON]; [PERSON] [PERSON] Development of a Bio-Inspired TES Tank for Heat Transfer  
**Bio-Inspired TES Tank for Heat Transfer Enhancement in Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage Systems**  
**Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 2940. [[https://doi.org/10.3390/app14072940](https://doi.org/10.3390/app14072940)]([https://doi.org/10.3390/app14072940](https://doi.org/10.3390/app14072940))**  
**Cognition**: 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons. shape, annular spacing between the fins, thickness, etc. [9; 10]. Moreover, the types of techniques used on a material level included the inclusion of nanoparticles and the macro- and microencapsulation of PCMs [11; 12; 13; 14]. The intriguing features of biological anatomy inspire the current work [15; 16; 17]. In general, natural biological systems have fully branched fluid flow routes with a larger surface area and a smaller pressure drop [18]. For instance, pumping blood throughout the body is the heart's function; however, the heart cannot deliver blood to the extremities through the capillaries until it pumps to the arteries first, then branches down to a smaller diameter until it reaches the end. Thus, a fundamental factor influencing the fluid transport characteristics in biological systems is the branching network. The addition of such branched pathways of flow to a TES system would have a lot of advantages because their surface area for heat transfer is greater than that of a fluid channel with parallel flow. Another advantage is that their bifurcations would result in low overall pressure drop [19]. The bifurcation points in branched networks act as an origin for the smaller diameter channels with a subsequent increase in the fluid flow area. The presence of small-diameter channels reduces the thermal resistance in the radial direction, and the increased flow area reduces the total pressure drop [18]. This phenomenon provides the foundation for developing a TES tank with heat transfer fluid flow tubes in a branched pattern. Two heat sink instances were created by [PERSON] [20] in order to compare how well they performed in terms of both wall temperature and overall pressure drop. In one of the cases, fluid flow paths resembled a parallel flow network, while the other case replicated a branched network.