High-Temperature Pumps and Valves for Molten Salt

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This project will develop high-temperature liquid-phase pumps and valves that use novel ceramic-metal composite materials that are stable at high temperatures, instead of steel or nickel-based alloys, to create components that can reliably operate with molten salts at 750 degrees Celsius. This project will use low-cost novel refractory materials and processes to form these materials into the complex shapes needed to form pump and valve components. They will test the integration of these components in both liquid pumps and valves and investigate whether any new corrosion mechanisms arise due to salts flowing through the pumps in comparison to stagnant salt. This will enable the scale-up of a liquid pump that can be implemented in a multi-megawatt flowing molten salt loop with high reliability and used in Phase 3 of the Gen3 CSP program.