Latent and thermal energy storage enhancement of silver nanowires-nitrate molten salt for concentrated solar power

Abstract

Phase change material (PCM) through latent heat of molten salt, is a convincing way for thermal energy storage in CSP applications due to its high volume density. Molten salt, with (60% NaNO3 and 40% KNO3) has been used extensively for energy storage however; the low thermal conductivity and specific heat have limited its large implementation in solar applications. For that, molten salt with the additive of silver nanowires (AgNWs) was synthesized and characterized. This research project aims to investigate the thermophysical properties enhancement of nanosalt (Mixture of molten salt and silver nanowires). The results obtained showed that by simply adjusting the temperature, Silver nanowires with high aspect ratio have been synthesized through the enhanced PVP polyol process method. SEM results revealed a network of silver nanowires and TEM results confirmed the presence of silver nanowires with an average diameter of 129 nm and 16 μm in length.