Salting the highway. Molten salts can help produce hydrogen that would power cars such as this Mercedes Benz prototype.
So the world has an energy hangover from its centuries long binge on fossil fuels. Here’s the coming cure: molten salts.
These intriguing elixirs and their handy thermodynamic properties will soon stream and bathe their way into any number of power and industrial applications that will help the planet kick its addiction to hydrocarbons.
Want to produce hydrogen? Store solar energy? Remove CO2 from fossil fuels? Build a much safer and more effective nuclear reactor? Slash the carbon footprint of oil sand production?
Then try a molten salt.
HOT STUFF
As the name implies, these substances are salts that melt at a high temperature – hundreds of degrees C, depending on the particular salt. They’re stable, they’re good at absorbing heat, they don’t boil easily (convenient when you need a very hot liquid) and they flow like water.
Many of you will already know that molten salts could hold the key to turning solar electricity into a round-the-clock affair, rather than the intermittent “only when the sun shines” state that characterizes it today. A handful of “solar thermal” power plants – Gemasolar in Spain and Crescent Dunes in Nevada, for example – are or soon will start to warm up molten salts with special reflective mirrors in order to store heat that by night they can convert to steam and drive a generator.
Regular readers of my blog will also know that alternative nuclear reactors that use molten salt fuel and coolants at high temperatures could trump today’s conventional reactors in many ways. They’d be safer, meltdown proof, would operate more efficiently, leave much less long-lived waste, and their waste would be less suitable for fashioning bombs. Use thorium instead of uranium in those reactors, as China is planning, and those advantages hold even truer.
Here’s another potential use, as I wrote recently on my blog for the Weinberg Foundation, a London-based non-profit group that advocates alternative forms of nuclear energy:
Molten salts can help extract hydrogen while at the same time removing CO2 from hydrocarbons like oil sands, according to Western Hydrogen Ltd., a Calgary-based company.
Deploying molten salt technology developed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, Western Hydrogen thinks it can pull hydrogen out of “carbonaceous” materials such as the bitumen in the oil sands common in Canada, as well as from other petroleum residue and petroleum coke.
Their so-called molten salt catalyzed gasification process runs water and carbon compounds through a bed of high temperature (around 850 degrees C) molten salts, out of which comes hydrogen and “sequestration ready” carbon dioxide, Western Hydrogen’s website explains in a “low carbon” energy scenario.
The hydrogen could be used as transportation fuel in the elusive hydrogen economy, and it could also feed petrochemical production processes which today use hydrogen derived from more expensive and less environmentally friendly processes, Western Hydrogen claims.
Western Hydrogen also plans to use its process to yield carbon monoxide and deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen that, incidentally, is key to nuclear fusion plans) that it would combine into synthetic liquid fuels.
CANADIAN KICK-OFF
The company hopes to start operating a pilot plant during the first half of this year near Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta in partnership with Aux Sable, a Canadian company that processes “offgases” from oil sands and would thus provide Western Hydrogen with a feedstock of presumably bitumen. The plant is being fabricated by Burlington, Ontario-based Zeton.
The Latest Bing News on:
Molten salts
- The incredible story of England’s lost ‘medieval Manhattan’
on March 30, 2023 at 2:00 amMedieval Winchelsea was a tagliatelle of twisting, winding streets parcelled in seawater. By the 13th century, it had become one of the principal ports of southern England and from its harbour great ...
- Molten Salt Battery Market Forecast: A Comprehensive Analysis of Industry Trends and Opportunities
on March 29, 2023 at 8:36 pmMar 29, 2023 (The Expresswire) -- "Final Report will add the analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on this industry." The “Molten Salt Battery Market” offers an all-inclusive view of the market, ...
- MoltexFLEX to develop technology to measure molten salt characteristics
on March 29, 2023 at 8:59 amUK-based MoltexFLEX says it has commissioned technology to measure the viscosity and density of molten salts at temperatures up to 1,000°C. The company, together with scientific instruments ...
- Molten Salt Battery Market Statistics, Segment, Trends and Forecast to 2030
on March 27, 2023 at 11:09 pmThe global Molten Salt Battery Marketindustry presented by Fortune Business Insights™ helps readers understand ...
- NHL star Ryan Reaves has wild reaction to smelling salts on bench
on March 27, 2023 at 4:37 amMinnesota Wild winger Ryan Reaves went viral on Saturday night during the team’s 3-1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks, and it was not for anything he did on the ice. Reaves had a goal in the ...
- Ryan Reaves requests stronger smelling salts and it goes horribly wrong
on March 25, 2023 at 7:07 pmBe careful what you wish for. As you can see in the video below, Minnesota Wild enforcer Ryan Reaves decided the smelling salts he first received weren’t good enough, and he needed something ...
- Novel heat-transfer medium and air wall increase efficiency of solar thermal tower power plants
on March 23, 2023 at 12:02 pmThe higher the receiver temperature, the more efficiently a solar thermal power plant will operate. Convective thermal losses also have an important effect on yield. The HelioGLOW collaborative ...
- MoltexFLEX adds ground-breaking technology to the mix
on March 22, 2023 at 5:00 pmThe advanced nuclear power and energy storage company, alongside world-leading scientific instruments manufacturer Anton Paar, has installed a rheometer inside a climate-controlled inert gas glovebox ...
- Dove adds molten lava cake-inspired candy
on March 21, 2023 at 9:31 amdark chocolate and sea salt and dark chocolate and mint swirl varieties. “We hope to inspire moments of everyday happiness with our newest innovation, Dove Milk Chocolate Molten Lava Caramel ...
- UP Catalyst explores molten salt regeneration for CCU
on March 21, 2023 at 9:05 amThe new system has the potential to significantly reduce waste as it allows the reuse of carbonate salt up to 100 times. The project, named Molten Salt Regeneration for Carbon Capture and utilisation ...
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Molten salts
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Molten salt technology
- Technology News
on March 29, 2023 at 5:17 pmShowcase your company news with guaranteed exposure both in print and online Gather your employees for an afternoon of games as we honor the Best Places to… Network with our region's hottest ...
- MoltexFLEX to develop technology to measure molten salt characteristics
on March 29, 2023 at 8:59 amUK-based MoltexFLEX says it has commissioned technology to measure the viscosity and density of molten salts at temperatures up to 1,000°C. The company, together with scientific instruments ...
- Are There Safer Ways To Produce Nuclear Energy?
on March 27, 2023 at 11:37 pmIn China’s case, it is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to try and commercialize this technology for two different plants using molten-salts. “The first will use solid fuel but be ...
- Water And Molten Aluminium Is A Dangerous Combination
on March 27, 2023 at 5:00 pmAnd no, the water won’t cause a steam explosion. There’s a guy on youtube (myfordlover, I think) who disproves that myth with molten iron, pouring the iron into water, pouring water into a ...
- MoltexFLEX adds ground-breaking technology to the mix
on March 22, 2023 at 5:00 pmThe advanced nuclear power and energy storage company, alongside world-leading scientific instruments manufacturer Anton Paar, has installed a rheometer inside a climate-controlled inert gas glovebox ...
- UP Catalyst explores molten salt regeneration for CCU
on March 21, 2023 at 9:05 amThe new system has the potential to significantly reduce waste as it allows the reuse of carbonate salt up to 100 times. The project, named Molten Salt Regeneration for Carbon Capture and utilisation ...
- Molten salt regeneration for CCU
on March 21, 2023 at 9:05 amThe new system has the potential to significantly reduce waste as it allows the reuse of carbonate salt up to 100 times. The project, named MoReCCU, has received funding through EIT Manufacturing’s ...
- Emerging tech, explained
on March 20, 2023 at 5:00 pmAttention to emerging technology also impacts the U.S. economy–the country where the platforms are created is where many of the jobs will be. Artificial intelligence: Simply put, artificial ...
- Building A Battery From Molten Salt
on March 17, 2023 at 5:00 pmDuring World War II a scientist named Georg Otto Erb developed the molten salt battery for use in military applications. The war ended before Erb’s batteries found any real use, but British ...
- Revolutionary $468 million solar energy storage plant proposed for north Brevard
on March 17, 2023 at 8:24 am"There is no silver bullet. We need lots of bullets." Fair said Malta is a leader in developing molten salt technology. "With long-duration energy storage, we can transition towards renewable ...
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