Accelerated aging tests to selective solar absorber coatings for low temperature applications

Platinum-Based High Temperature Selective Absorber Coatings

In photothermal energy conversion the absorbed solar flux is converted to heat which is then used directly or is converted to mechanical or electrical energy. Efficient receiver design requires that thermal losses from the absorber surface, which is the hottest element of the system, be minimised. Receivers are, in fact, generally classified according to their operating temperature ( I , 2). Th...

Selective Solar Absorber Materials: Nanostructured Surfaces

Current solar to thermal energy conversion technologies, including concentrated solar power (CSP) and solar water heaters (SWH) utilize absorber surfaces that collect incident solar radiation. However, these absorber surfaces emit thermal energy (at their temperature) in the infrared (IR) spectrum, resulting in decreased overall efficiency for solar-to-thermal conversion. Selective absorber sur...

Highly Efficient Selective Metamaterial Absorber for High-Temperature Solar Thermal Energy Harvesting

In this work, a selective solar absorber made of nanostructured titanium gratings deposited on an ultrathin MgF2 spacer and a tungsten ground film is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Normal absorptance of the fabricated solar absorber is characterized to be higher than 0.9 in the UV, visible and, near infrared (IR) regime, while the mid-IR emittance is around 0.2. The high broadband ab...

Review of physical vapor deposited ( PVD ) spectrally selective coatings for mid - and high - temperature solar thermal applications

Design of selective coatings for solar thermal applications using sub- wavelength metal-dielectric structures

Spectral control of the emissivity of surfaces is essential in applications such as solar thermal energy and thermophotovoltaic energy conversion in order to achieve the highest conversion efficiencies possible. We investigated surfaces consisting of periodic, nanoscale V-grooves coated with aperiodic metal-dielectric stacks. This approach combines impedance matching using tapered metallic feat...