Chemical Forums
Chemistry Forums for Students => Physical Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: JesseH on December 05, 2016, 08:24:03 AM
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Hello there!
I am quit new to this forum as well as to chemistry. I only took some chemistry courses while I was an undergraduate.
Recently I stumbled upon the phenomenon of supercooling. I know that you can do this with water as well as with some phase change materials, like sodium acetate trihydrate (from the wintersport handwarmers). Reading up on some literature I saw that phase change materials are experimented with for short term storage of electrical energy from solar panels. I thought if supercooling could be used, energy could be stored for a longer period of time. But it seems that the sodium acetate trihydrate has a melting temperature that is to low and other salt hydrates with a higher melting temperature do not have the ability to supercool that easily. Arriving at my burning question to you guys is,
Why are water and sodium acetate trihydrate able to supercool and other salt hydrates are not (like magnesium nitrate hexahydrate)?
Can we increase the melting point of a salt hydrate (like sodium acetate trihydrate) without losing the ability of supercooling?
Hope you guys can help me out!
I wasn't sure if I was allowed to share the literature I read and/or that would be helpful for answering my questions.
Cheers,
Jesse
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I don't have the exact information you're looking for. However, Glauber's salt, sodium sulfate decahydrate, is widely used as a thermal storage reagent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_sulfate#Thermal_storage