Molten Salt-Carbon Nanotube Thermal Energy Storage for Concentrating Solar Power Systems Final Report

Technical Report · Fri Mar 30 00:00:00 EDT 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1036948· OSTI ID:1036948

Schuller, Michael; Little, Frank; Malik, Darren; Betts, Matt; Shao, Qian; Luo, Jun; Zhong, Wan; Shankar, Sandhya; Padmanaban, Ashwin

We demonstrated that adding nanoparticles to a molten salt would increase its utility as a thermal energy storage medium for a concentrating solar power system. Specifically, we demonstrated that we could increase the specific heat of nitrate and carbonate salts containing 1% or less of alumina nanoparticles. We fabricated the composite materials using both evaporative and air drying methods. We tested several thermophysical properties of the composite materials, including the specific heat, thermal conductivity, latent heat, and melting point. We also assessed the stability of the composite material with repeated thermal cycling and the effects of adding the nanoparticles on the corrosion of stainless steel by the composite salt. Our results indicate that stable, repeatable 25-50% improvements in specific heat are possible for these materials. We found that using these composite salts as the thermal energy storage material for a concentrating solar thermal power system can reduce the levelized cost of electricity by 10-20%. We conclude that these materials are worth further development and inclusion in future concentrating solar power systems.

• Research Organization: Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Texas A & M Engineering Experiment Station
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
• DOE Contract Number: FG36-08GO18154
• OSTI ID: 1036948
• Report Number(s): DOE/GO18154; TRN: US201209%%258
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION
25 ENERGY STORAGE
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CARBONATES
COMPOSITE MATERIALS
CORROSION
DRYING
ELECTRICITY
ENERGY STORAGE
MELTING POINTS
MOLTEN SALTS
NANOTUBES
NITRATES
POWER SYSTEMS
SPECIFIC HEAT
STABILITY
STAINLESS STEELS
THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY
THERMAL CYCLING
solar thermal energy storage nanomaterial specific heat