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Renewables—The Future’s (only) Hope!
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Energy Security for The 21st Century, 2021
Molten salt is a mixture of 60% sodium nitrate and 40% potassium nitrate. The mixture melts at 220°C, and is kept liquid at 290°C (550°F) in insulated storage tanks for several hours. It is used in periods of cloudy weather or at night using the stored thermal energy in the molten salt tank to generate steam and turn a turbine, which in turn generates electricity. These turbines are well established technology and are relatively cheap to install and operate.
Most Promising Solar Technologies
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Solar Technologies for the 21st Century, 2021
Molten salt is a mixture of 60% sodium nitrate and 40% potassium nitrate. The mixture melts at 220°C, and is kept liquid at 290°C (550°F) in insulated storage tanks for several hours. It is used in periods of cloudy weather or at night using the stored thermal energy in the molten salt tank to generate steam and turn a turbine, which in turn generates electricity. These turbines are well established technology and are relatively cheap to install and operate.
Solar Cooking Applications Through Phase Change Materials
Published in Amritanshu Shukla, Atul Sharma, Pascal Henry Biwolé, Latent Heat-Based Thermal Energy Storage Systems, 2020
Atul Sharma, Abhishek Anand, Shailendra Singh, Amritanshu Shukla
Veremachi et al.31 presented a double-reflector setup with storage unit. The binary mixture of sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate ( NaNO3–KNO3 ) at a mixing ratio of 60:40 (mol %) was used as a PCM in this experiment. The melting temperature of the PCM was about 220°C, which can be a good option for cooking applications. Authors presented a secondary reflector, which was positioned above the focal point of the primary reflector that directs the rays onto heat storage positioned below a hole in the primary reflector. Figure 8.6 shows the camera photograph of the experimental setup.
Study of Combustion Characteristics of Magnesium/Strontium Nitrate and Magnesium/Sodium Nitrate Pyrotechnics Under Low Pressure Environment
Published in Combustion Science and Technology, 2023
Zefeng Guo, Hua Guan, Chengkuan Shi, Bohuai Zhou
The TG-DSC curves of magnesium/sodium nitrate pyrotechnics at 1 kPa are shown in Figure 10. In contrast to the atmospheric pressure, the reaction history of the N sample at 1 kPa is divided into two main stages. In the first stage, 400°C~550°C, the decomposition of sodium nitrate and the oxidative decomposition of phenolic resin led to a slow decrease of TG curve, while a weak exothermic peak appeared in DSC. Unlike the atmospheric pressure, the TG curve continues to decrease after 500°C without an upward trend. Because the oxygen content at 1kPa is 101/1 of that at atmospheric pressure, it is clear from the reaction kinetics that it is difficult for magnesium to react with oxygen in air under this condition. In the second stage, 550°C~620°C, the magnesium powder started to be oxidized by sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite. A sharp exothermic peak appeared in the DSC curve and reached the peak temperature at 578°C. The exothermic oxidation of magnesium promotes the decomposition of sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite, resulting in a sudden drop in the TG curve.
The Experimental and Simulation Results of LIVE-J2 Test—Investigation on Heat Transfer in a Solid–Liquid Mixture Pool
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2023
Hiroshi Madokoro, Takuya Yamashita, Xiaoyang Gaus-Liu, Thomas Cron, Beatrix Fluhrer, Ikken Sato, Shinya Mizokami
Two different simulant materials were used in the LIVE-J2 test. Ceramic beads and nitrate salt simulate the higher-melting-temperature oxidic components and the lower-melting-temperature metallic components, respectively. The ceramic spheric beads of RIMAX produced by ZIRPRO consisted of 58% ZrO2 and 37% SiO2, having the size of 2.5 to 2.8 mm. The nitrate salt was prepared at KIT, and a binary eutectic mixture of sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate was chosen as in other LIVE experiments. In the LIVE-J2 experiment, the eutectic composition of 50 mol % NaNO3-50 mol % KNO3 was selected, which has the eutectic temperature of 220°C to 222°C (Ref. 13). The thermal properties of ceramic beads and nitrate salt are described in Tables II and III, respectively.
Study of Combustion Characteristics of Magnesium/Sodium Nitrate Pyrotechnics Under Sub-Atmospheric Pressure
Published in Combustion Science and Technology, 2022
Zefeng Guo, Jian Ju, Hua Guan, Chengkuan Shi, Zejun Li
Magnesium/sodium nitrate (Mg/NaNO3) mixture is the most common pyrotechnic powder, which is widely used in military and civilian fields, such as lighting agents, signal agents, decoy agents and signal agents (Bagherpour, Mahdavi, and Abedini 2019; Harihar 1989; Meishuai, Xiaoyan, and Rongjie 2007, 2009; Ramy and Mohamed 2017). As an oxidizer, sodium nitrate decomposes at high temperatures to give oxygen for pyrotechnics burning. Magnesium, which works as a combustible ingredient, is oxidized during the combustion process and emits a lot of heat, which ensures that pyrotechnics burn consistently. The oxidation product of magnesium, magnesium oxide, is a typical incandescent emitter, which produces strong white light in a high-temperature flame. So far, many scholars have studied the reaction mechanism, combustion performance and luminescence performance of magnesium/sodium nitrate system pyrotechnic powder under normal pressure. It is generally believed that the magnesium/sodium nitrate pyrotechnic mixture undergoes two reaction stages during the combustion process: firstly, magnesium and molten sodium nitrate react in the condensed phase pyrotechnic powder to form magnesium oxide and sodium oxide and nitrogen; then the excess magnesium in the system continues to be oxidized by oxygen in the air (Harihar 1989).