4 ms·
Molten salts are hot! SCNR. Seriously though, molten salts are great heat transfer media, a bit like water, just at higher temperature and still low pressure.
by 08-15 8y ago
Molten salts are hot!
SCNR. Seriously though, molten salts are great heat transfer media, a bit like water, just at higher temperature and still low pressure. They are also completely immune to radiation damage, which is a big deal if you have 14MeV neutrons flying around and something has to stop them. Chemistry in molten salts is also interesting. Things can be extracted (say, into a molten metal phase) or precipitated, and some reactions just happen at 600 degrees while they need platinum and palladium catalysts at room temperature. What's not to love?
- antocv 8y agoCan you teach me more about the radiation properties of molten salts? Didnt know molten salt is immune to radiation, why would that be? Thats cool, though.
- pfdietz 8y agoBecause they (or, at least, the ones being discussed) have no covalent chemical bonds or other static arrangements of atoms that can be disrupted. The ions are all just single atoms with more or fewer electrons than the neutral versions of those elements. The atoms can be ionized by radiation, but the resulting weird oxidation states just fall back to chemical equilibrium as the electrons redistribute.