Join us on January 19th, 2022 | 12:05 PM-1:05 PM (EST)
Molten salts have gained considerable renewed interest as effective thermal energy storage and heat transfer fluids in alternative low-carbon thermal energy technologies. Molten salts are obtained from melting readily available salt mixtures such as nitrates and chlorides. They are inexpensive, reach high temperatures at low pressures, have high heat capacities providing superior thermal energy storage, and have high nuclear fission burn-up. They are therefore excellent heat transfer fluids that can be used for a variety of thermal management applications and enable energy technologies with high power densities. In this talk, I will present our work and recent advances in McGill’s Thermal Energy Lab to improve the thermal performance of molten salt concentrating solar power, nuclear power, and thermal energy storage technologies.
Mélanie Tétreault-Friend
Mélanie Tétreault-Friend is an assistant professor in the department of Mechanical Engineering at McGill University. Mélanie's core research area is thermal-fluids in sustainable and low-carbon energy technologies. Carbon-free thermal energy sources such as solar and nuclear paired with technologies using high temperature (>400°C) heat transfer fluids such as molten salts and synthetic oils are promising alternatives that could achieve high thermal efficiencies. Examples include molten salt solar receivers, thermal energy storage, Generation IV nuclear reactors, and salt-cooled fusion reactors. Improving thermal-hydraulics analyses and predictions is crucial to realize major safety, reliability, and economic breakthroughs in these technologies.
Mélanie focuses on advanced experimental and applied computational methods for radiative heat transfer in high-temperature heat transfer fluids. Mélanie's group research involves developing methods to measure the thermal radiation absorption and scattering optical properties of high-temperature fluids, developing and carrying out lab-scale experiments to investigate the mechanisms governing the interaction between radiation and convection in volumetrically heated fluids used in solar and nuclear applications, and using the experimental data to develop computational and analytical models to improve system efficiencies.