Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts: Insights from the TCSALT Database
摘要
Molten salts play a crucial role in numerous industrial applications, including nuclear reactors, thermal energy storage, and high-temperature electrochemical processes. Their thermophysical properties, such as viscosity, surface tension, and molar volume, are essential for optimizing performance and ensuring operational safety, as they govern heat transfer, fluid flow, and interfacial behavior in high-temperature environments. The TCSALT Molten Salts Database (Version 2.0) provides critically assessed thermodynamic and thermophysical data for fluoride- and chloride-based salts with oxide additions: AlCl3–AlF3–Al2O3–CaCl2–CaF2–CaO–KCl–KF–K2O–LiCl–LiF–Li2O–MgCl2–MgF2–MgO–NaCl–NaF–Na2O–SiCl4–SiF4–SiO2–SrCl2–SrF2–SrO–ZnCl2–ZnF2–ZnO. The database employs the Ionic Two-Sublattice Liquid Model to describe the molten salt solutions, enabling accurate predictions of multicomponent phase diagrams together with both thermodynamic and thermophysical properties. Using this database, viscosity and surface tension can be directly predicted from the underlying ionic structure description of the melt, offering quantitative insights into species distribution, connectivity, and structural evolution across a wide range of temperatures and compositions. The database also includes molar volume descriptions for both liquid and solid phases, further enhancing its applicability in high-temperature material processing and engineering applications. The integration of these thermophysical properties within a unified computational thermodynamic framework provides a powerful tool for material design and process optimization.