Survey of Properties of Key Single and Mixture Halide Salts for Potential Application as High Temperature Heat Transfer Fluids for Concentrated Solar Thermal Power Systems

Abstract

In order to obtain high energy efficiency in a concentrated solar thermal power plant, more and more high concentration ratio to solar radiation are applied to collect high temperature thermal energy in modern solar power technologies. This incurs the need of a heat transfer fluid being able to work at more and more high temperatures to carry the heat from solar concentrators to a power plant. To develop the third generation heat transfer fluids targeting at a high working temperature at least 800 ℃, a research team from University of Arizona, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Arizona State University proposed to use eutectic halide salts mixtures in order to obtain the desired properties of low melting point, low vapor pressure, great stability at temperatures at least 800 ℃, low corrosion, and favorable thermal and transport properties. In this paper, a survey of the available thermal and transport properties of single and eutectic mixture of several key halide salts is conducted, providing information of great significance to researchers for heat transfer fluid development.