Thermal energy grid storage: Liquid containment and pumping above 2000 °C

Caleb Amy, Mehdi Pishahang, Colin Kelsall, Alina LaPotin, Sonja Brankovic, Shannon Yee and Asegun Henry

Applied Energy, 2022, vol. 308, issue C, No S0306261921013672

Abstract: As the cost of renewable energy falls below fossil fuels, the key barrier to widespread sustainable electricity has become availability on demand. Energy storage can enable dispatchable renewables, but only with drastic cost reductions compared to current battery technologies. One electricity storage concept that could enable these cost reductions stores electricity as sensible heat in an extremely hot liquid (>2000 °C) and uses multi-junction photovoltaics (MPV) as a heat engine to convert it back to electricity on demand, hours or days, later. This paper reports the first containment and pumping of silicon in a multipart graphite tank above 2000 °C, using material grades that are affordable for energy storage at GWh scales. Low cost molded graphite with particle sizes as large as 10 μm successfully contained metallurgical grade silicon, even with as much as two-thirds iron by mass for up to 10 h and temperatures as high as 2300 °C, in tanks as large as two gallons.

Keywords: High temperature; Thermal energy storage; Materials compatibility; Inert containment; Pumping; Sealing; Liquid Metal Pumping; High Temperature Pumping; Liquid Silicon (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261921013672
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:308:y:2022:i:c:s0306261921013672

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.118081

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().