Additively Manufactured Molten Salt-to-Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Heat Exchanger

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This team seeks to develop an additively manufactured, nickel superalloy primary heat exchanger (PHX) for advanced molten salt concentrated solar-thermal power (CSP) systems. The PHX will be made using nickel superalloys and laser powder bed 3-D printing, resulting in a compact design that is durable under cyclic operation at high temperatures and pressures in a corrosive salt environment. During the first phase of the project, different alloy powders will be fabricated and characterized and then tested, both in conditions representative of Generation 3 CSP systems 720 ° Celsius and supercritical carbon dioxide pressures of 200 bar and at conditions relevant to current commercial systems molten nitrate salt at temperatures up to 550 ° Celsius. The team aims to validate a thermal model that can predict performance in a chloride salt environment and plans to use this model to develop a 20-kilowatt design to test the mechanical integrity of the fabricated PHX.

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