There is growing interest in using the dehydration of a metal salt as a way to store solar energy. The system is charged during the dehydration step and the energy is released when the salt is rehydrated. The dynamic of both the dehydration and the rehydration steps must be known to design an effective system. Thermal gravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, and variable temperature powder x-ray diffraction have been used to measure the dynamics of the dehydration of several simple metal salt hydrates. The rate of reaction was found to depend on experimental conditions such as the heating rate and the sample size. By measuring the reaction rate under several different experimental conditions, it is possible to determine the Arrhenius parameters for both the forward and the reverse reactions. Examples obtained for simple systems like Na2CO3 . H2O and K2C2O4 . H2O where the method works well and for more complicated systems like the Tutton salts will be presented.

Dynamics of the reversible dehydration of metal salts

254th National Meeting (2017)

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