Highly purified FLiNaK, FLiBe and Chloride Salts

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Test salts such as FLiNaK, FLiBe and Chloride Salts. Fuel salts such as UF4 and ThF4. And enriched lithium delivered as LiF.

Copenhagen Atomics is a leading manufacturer of highly purified salts for molten salt reactors, fusion, academic and similar applications.
Salts are provided in purity as low as 20 ppm oxides. Using these purified salts it is possible to significantly eliminate corrosion.
We are providing a number of clean, dry, and pre-melted salts. These salts are:

Highly purified salts

FLiNaK, FLiBe, and Chloride Salts

Fuel salts

Uranium fuel salt (UF4) and Thorium fuel salt (ThF4)

Enriched Lithium

Li-6 salt and Li-7 salt

Molten salt

Highlights

Ships in one
high-purity
grade

Ships in
volumes of 1 kg
and ton scale

Pre-mixed and
pre-melted
pellets or tanks

Less impurity
from moisture,
oxides and
metal traces

10 times less
moisture uptake
compared
to powder

Significantly
less corrosion

The molten salts

Introduction

Copenhagen Atomics has developed purification processes which enables control of the amount of metallic and oxygen containing impurities in selected salts, because impurity driven corrosion is one of the main material degradation mechanisms in any molten salt system.

Traditionally, commercially available FLiNaK, FLiBe and Chloride salts come in powder form and needs to be mixed to the eutectic composition, while often containing a large and variable amount of moisture, oxide and metal contaminants.

Therefore, Copenhagen Atomics has developed a commercially available high-purity grade of salts. Tight impurity control and a pre-mixed formulation enable research groups and companies using molten salt to obtain more reliable, consistent data and to reduce corrosion in molten-salt processes.

Purified salt

Through production this undergoes a time consuming purification process to drive out moisture and oxygen from the salt. Purified salt is available in large quantities, intended for large testing requirements or molten salt processes in operation.

THE DETAILS

Corrosion and Impurities

Copenhagen Atomics has significantly increased the accuracy of measuring impurity in these salts by 10% or more.

Metal impurity is measured through ICP OES and oxide impurity through electrochemical techniques.

The figure on the right shows the salt’s oxide and metal contaminant levels

Increased accuracy of impurity measurement, leads to increased accuracy of measuring corrosion, as corrosion scales with increased moisture, oxide and metal content.

Corrosion rate decreases substantially with the salts produced by Copenhagen Atomics.

  • Corrosion rate induced by Copenhagen Atomics’ purified salt is less than 0.01 mm/year.
  • Corrosion rate induced by commercially available salt powder is more than 1 mm/year.
  • Corrosion rate in stainless steel 316L at 550 ˚C in static experiments without galvanic effects.
TABLE OF TYPICAL IMPURITIES
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WHY US?

Advantages

of using our salts

Copenhagen Atomics purified salts ships in ingots and tanks.

There is around 10 times the amount of moisture uptake in the powdered salt compared to the ingot at each time interval, when exposing the various salts to air measuring the increase in the mass.

It is challenging to ship and handle salts in powder form without introducing moisture. The handling alone will introduce a large amount of moisture that will potentially result in 5 - 10 times more corrosion of steel.

Using Copenhagen Atomics’ high-purity salt results in significantly less corrosion when handled correctly*.

It would be more cost effective to use purified salts from Copenhagen Atomics and stainless steel 316 instead of powder-based salts and more expensive steels, such as Hastelloy N.

*Copenhagen Atomics will provide guidelines on how to handle the salt in order to minimize the oxygen content in your system during loading and operation.

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Download salt Datasheets

More technical and in-depth documents

Choose datasheet to download

FLiNaK datasheet FLiBe datasheet Chloride Salt datasheet
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FAQ

There are many different applications for molten salt. We are building a molten salt reactor and we need a lot of highly purified salt for this. More than 10 tonnes this year alone. Other applications include concentrated solar power, thermal storage, fusion projects and general scientific research on flow, corrosion and more. So we see a growing interest to use this technology and we are happy to make our salts available for the market.

You have to go through a very time consuming and labor intensive process in order to mix the unrefined salt into the eutectic composition. In addition, molten salts that contain a large amount of moisture, oxide and metal contaminants are highly corrosive. We have created a special production method to reduce oxides in the salt to below 20 ppm and from extensive testing we see that this has a great impact on corrosion. Our goal is to supply the highest purified salt for others to focus on their technological development rather than battling corrosion.

No. We supply a great number of salts such as, but not limited to, FLiBe and Chloride Salts.

The salt is supplied in three packaging formats: sub-kilogram laboratory packs and tonne-scale units for industrial use. Once the salt is transferred into your system, the reusable containers—along with the salt-loader that melts the product under an oxygen- and moisture-free atmosphere—are returned. During melting and transfer the loader maintains an inert environment, records the process data digitally, and a production-day purity certificate is provided for every canister. Liquid salt is pushed from the canister into your tanks through an insulated 6 mm stainless-steel line using pressure, and the same closed procedure applies to industrial-scale deliveries.

Salt from Copenhagen Atomics is highly purified compared to other salts available, especially due to the fact that other commercially available salts are provided in powder form. Not only is it difficult to handle, it also needs to be mixed into the eutectic composition, which is very time and labor consuming, and often contains a large and variable amount of moisture, oxide and metal contaminants. Moreover, there is around 10 times the amount of moisture uptake in the powdered salt compared to this salt due to a lower surface area.

It is possible to use SS316L with these salts and get very low corrosion rates, if the salt is handled in a way where they do not get contaminated and cover gas in the system is also very pure, e.g. less than 50 ppm oxygen in the cover gas. We find that very expensive materials like Hasteloy do not perform much better than SS 316 in such a clean environment. Both the heat exchangers and the pump used in Copenhagen Atomics are also made from SS316L.

Samples received from Copenhagen Atomics are always vacuum packed in special containers to minimize the moisture uptake during transport. It is important to always unpack these inside a glovebox with 100 ppm oxygen and moisture. We can provide sensors which can help monitor this. We provide the salt in bars or in tanks, because this minimizes the moisture uptake per minute by a factor of 10 compared to powder. When you purchase salt from Copenhagen Atomics, we provide instructions on how to handle it to minimize oxygen and moisture exposure while you load the salt, in order to avoid corrosion in your own system.