Accelerated Materials Design for Molten Salt Technologies Using Innovative High-Throughput Methods

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Program:
OPEN 2018
Award:
$1,861,820
Location:
Madison, Wisconsin
Status:
ALUMNI
Project Term:
02/04/2019 - 08/03/2022

Technology Description:

The University of Wisconsin’s integrated toolset seeks to expedite molten salt materials development for technology by two orders of magnitude, compared with current methods. The team will combine advances in additive manufacturing, in-place testing for materials/salt compatibility, new molten salt-resistant mini-electrode designs, and machine learning algorithms to optimize and accelerate identification of molten salt corrosion-resistant materials. Those materials can be used in energy applications including molten salt nuclear reactors, concentrated solar plants, and thermal storage.

Potential Impact:

This high-throughput material compatability evaluation technology would dramatically lower the cost required to identify corrosion resistant metal alloy and molten salt pairs. This capability would enable better-performing, lower-cost, and/or more durable molten salt nuclear reactors, concentrating solar power plants, and thermal storage systems and consequently would:

Security:

Mitigate the costs and risks associated with adapting to climate change and enable more diversified domestically-produced energy options

Environment:

Enable proliferation of lower-emission energy technologies

Economy:

Enhance U.S. economic productivity by reducing the cost of generating electric power

Contact

ARPA-E Program Director:
Dr. Jenifer Shafer
Project Contact:
Prof. Adrien Couet
Press and General Inquiries Email:
ARPA-E-Comms@hq.doe.gov
Project Contact Email:
couet@wisc.edu

Partners

Argonne National Laboratory

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Release Date:
12/13/2017