Molten Salt Purification

Project Leads: Adam Burak, Mohammad Umar Farooq Khan, Connor Shamberger, Peng Wang

Impurities accelerate molten salt corrosion and can make results difficult to interpret. Commercially available salts for corrosion testing are not pure enough to prevent this impurity driven corrosion. The MiHTEE lab implements two molten salt purification processes to support fluoride and chloride molten salt research. Fluoride salts are purified through bubbling fluorinating agents through the molten salt. Chloride salt purification involves heat drying and adding an excess of magnesium metal. These processes help remove water, metal fluorides and other impurities allowing for tests to better study how salts attack structural materials for reactors.