Thermal property characterization of a low melting-temperature ternary nitrate salt mixture for thermal energy storage systems

Molten salts have better thermal properties than synthetic mineral oil, and hence they can be directly used as heat transfer fluids in solar power plants, but in practice their direct applications as heat transfer fluids are constrained due to their high freezing temperature points. In this paper, a class of ternary nitrate salt mixtures consisting of 50–80 wt% KNO 3, 0–25 wt% LiNO 3 and 10–45 wt% Ca(NO 3) 2 were processed and tested. Experimental results indicated that some mixtures within this range exhibited excellent thermal properties, such as a low melting point (