The effect of porous media on the thermal storage performance of salinity-gradient solar pond

Abstract A solar pond is a system that uses a salt concentration gradient to store heat. The application of the system is conducive to solving the problems of long production cycles, low brine temperature, and salt algae in the solar pond lithium extraction process and the solar pond potassium enrichment process. Based on this, our research group laid porous media at the bottom of the solar pond and utilized the heat storage and adsorption capacity of porous media to improve the thermal storage performance of the solar pond. The experimental results show that foam ceramics have good thermal storage performance and the ability to reduce turbidity. Laying foam ceramics on the bottom of the solar pond can not only increase the thermal storage performance of LCZ but also help reduce the turbidity of the pool water. After adding porous media, the heat extraction position of the solar pool moves from the junction of LCZ and NCZ to the bottom of LCZ. In addition, adding transparent film on the upper surface of the solar pond is also conducive to improving the thermal storage performance of the solar pond and reducing the turbidity of the solar pond.