Solar cavity absorber with heat storage

What is a solar absorber?

Solar absorbers, which convert solar radiation into heat, are a key component to the performance of various solar thermal systems, such as solar thermal power plants and solar thermoelectric generators, as well as solar thermophotovoltaics.

What are selective solar absorbers?

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative Spectrally selective solar absorbers (SSAs), which harvest heat from sunlight, are the key to concentrated solar thermal systems.

Are semiconductor-based solar thermal absorbers suitable for solar thermal applications?

Standard materials for solar cell antireflection coatings such as SiO 2, Si 3 N 4, and TiO 2 are quite emissive in the mid-infrared, however, and are unsuitable for solar thermal applications. As a result, the performance of semiconductor-based solar thermal absorbers has lagged that of metallic and ceramic counterparts.

How do solar absorbers absorb sunlight?

Generally, sunlight concentrates into beams with high energy density, which are absorbed by solar absorbers, but the incident angle of the concentrated beams is not always normal to the surface of solar absorbers.

What is the surface temperature range of a solar absorber?

Furthermore, the solar absorber materials that our nanolayer aims to enhance are all operated well below the glass transition temperature of pure silica (ca. 1200 ° C). For example, the surface temperature range of a conventional CST receiver generally falls between 600 ° C and 700 ° C.

Are silicon films selective absorbers for solar energy conversion?

Ackley, D. E. & Tauc, J. Silicon films as selective absorbers for solar energy conversion. Appl. Opt. 16, 2806–2809 (1977). Booth, D. C., Allred, D. D. & Seraphin, B. O. Stabilized cvd amorphous silicon for high-temperature photothermal solar-energy conversion. Sol. Energy Mater. 2, 107–124 (1979).