Molten Salt Electrochemistry, Corrosion, and Thermal Energy Storage
This community investigates the physical, chemical, and electrochemical properties of molten salts, focusing on their use as coolants in advanced nuclear reactors, media for high-temperature metal extraction, and fluids for storing thermal energy from solar or industrial processes.
The research centers on chloride and fluoride salt mixtures, specifically LiCl-KCl and NaCl-KCl eutectics, with a heavy emphasis on understanding how these salts interact with structural materials like stainless steel and titanium. Key topics include the corrosion behavior of these alloys in high-temperature salt environments, the electrochemical reduction of metals such as titanium and aluminum, and the thermophysical properties required for efficient heat transfer. The work also covers the design of salt-cooled fast reactors and the application of molten salts in concentrated solar power plants for thermal energy storage.
The community is most prominent in research tracked for Uranium, representing 1.3% of all uranium research, and Fluorine, accounting for 0.8% of fluorine research. It also constitutes a significant portion of Chlorine research, at 0.8%.
The group comprises 15,745 papers, published primarily in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, Journal of Nuclear Materials, and Electrochimica Acta.
Recent work continues to focus on mitigating corrosion in chloride molten salts for next-generation thermal energy storage and optimizing electrochemical processes for extracting high-purity metals like copper and aluminum from waste streams or lunar regolith.