High Performance Amorphous Thermal Sprayed Coatings for Concentrated Solar Power

Chloride salts have been identified as one of the promising media for thermal energy storage and heat transfer for achieving high operating temperatures of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) systems. However, these molten salts introduce a set of challenges because of the severity of corrosive environment at high temperatures.

LM Group Holdings, Inc. has developed and applied proprietary innovative amorphous metallic alloy coatings that are able to withstand the severe corrosive environment of molten salt at high temperatures. Amorphous metals are a novel class of materials that have a disordered, non-crystalline, glassy structure. Due to their unique microstructure, amorphous metals combine ultrahigh strength, high hardness and ductility in one single material. Amorphous Metals are more corrosion resistant compared to conventional metals due to the lack of long-range periodicity, related grain boundaries and crystal defects such as dislocations.

This presentation will highlight amorphous thermal sprayed coatings on Haynes 230 which have been tested at ORNL and compared to non-coated Haynes 230 in terms of corrosion resistance under molten chloride salt at 750 degree C for 300 hours. This work is sponsored through DoE SBIR award DE-SC0017682.