Design, construction and testing of a pumped molten chloride circulation loop

Next generation concentrating solar power (CSP) with thermal energy storage is envisioned to operate with a peak temperature of 700 °C or higher, but transitioning from a stainless steel to a nickel alloy infrastructure is prohibitively expensive. In light of this challenge, the present work investigates the use of refractory materials instead of nickel alloys. This thesis presents the design, construction and testing of a laboratory-scale pumped circulation loop made of refractory materials to circulate molten chloride salt above 700 °C. The components of the loop were initially constructed from conventional refractory materials such as graphite, carbon-carbon composite, molybdenum, and alumina, though the loop was subsequently adapted to test a laboratory-scale tank and pipe made of a novel calcium hexaluminate-based castable refractory designed to resist corrosion and penetration by molten chloride salt. In addition, this thesis describes the design and operation of a convection-enhanced rotating disk corrosion test apparatus to study the corrosion behavior of refractory materials in molten chloride salt under flowing conditions.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Bichnevicius, Michael

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Henry, Asegun

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
• Copyright retained by author(s)

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/151825

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/151825