Mechanical Dispersion of Nanoparticles and Its Effect on the Specific Heat Capacity of Impure Binary Nitrate Salt Mixtures

Mathieu Lasfargues; Qiao Geng; Hui Cao; Yulong Ding

doi:10.3390/nano5031136

Mechanical Dispersion of Nanoparticles and Its Effect on the Specific Heat Capacity of Impure Binary Nitrate Salt Mixtures

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2015 Jun 29;5(3):1136-1146. doi: 10.3390/nano5031136.

Authors

Mathieu Lasfargues¹, Qiao Geng², Hui Cao³, Yulong Ding⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. m.lasfargues@leeds.ac.uk.
² School of Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. gxq471@student.bham.ac.uk.
³ School of Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. h.cao@bham.ac.uk.
⁴ School of Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. y.ding@bham.ac.uk.

Abstract

In this study, the effect of nanoparticle concentration was tested for both CuO and TiO₂ in eutectic mixture of sodium and potassium nitrate. Results showed an enhancement in specific heat capacity (C_p) for both types of nanoparticles (+10.48% at 440 °C for 0.1 wt % CuO and +4.95% at 440 °C for 0.5 wt % TiO₂) but the behavior toward a rise in concentration was different with CuO displaying its highest enhancement at the lowest concentration whilst TiO₂ showed no concentration dependence for three of the four different concentrations tested. The production of cluster of nanoparticles was visible in CuO but not in TiO₂. This formation of nanostructure in molten salt might promote the enhancement in C_p. However, the size and shape of these structures will most likely impact the energy density of the molten salt.

Keywords: energy storage; molten salt; nanoparticles.