Momentum - The Magazine for Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering Vol. 3 No. 4 Winter 2018 | Page 14

STORY, PHOTOS BY ROSAIRE BUSHEY
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
Molten salt
cooling heats
up mechanical
engineering
laboratory
In 2018, five separate proj-
ects worth a total of more than
$1.3 million to the Nuclear
Materials and Fuel Cycle Lab
(NMFC), have been approved
to take advantage of Virginia
Tech’s capabilities to study
molten chemistry, corrosion
and corrosion control as well
as simulation.
As co-PI on four of the
projects funded by the Depart-
ment of Energy, Jinsuo Zhang,
a professor of mechanical
engineering in the College of
Engineering, will use his new
lab space in the Virginia Tech
Corporate Research Center to
perform research for nuclear
and solar-based projects with
an eye toward lowering the cost of solar pow-
er, and making nuclear power more efficient.
Two of the projects are part of a DOE
Technologies Office program to study
MOMENTUM
FALL 2018
high-temperature molten salt properties and
corrosion mechanisms as part of a $72 million
program called Concentrating Solar Power
research, with a goal to create less expensive
solar power.
“Molten salt has excellent heat transfer
characteristics, and can attain very high tem-
peratures in excess of 700c,” said Zhang. “The
idea is that molten salt can be used to absorb
heat from solar facilities, and for creating
clean power in nuclear facilities. It’s a very
sought-after and useful material because of its
low vapor pressure at high temperatures. The
solar programs are looking at temperatures of
around 700c and the nuclear reactors are look-
ing at temperatures in the 700-800c range, so
the chemistry and corrosion of the salts is very
important.”
In Zhang’s lab, equipment such as a molten
salt loop, gloveboxes, electro-chemical cells,
and corrosion test autoclaves, are used to
perform corrosion and chemistry studies,
providing critical and fundamental data to
energy engineers to use as part of simulations
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