Semiconductor-based Multilayer Selective Solar Absorber for Unconcentrated Solar Thermal Energy Conversion.

ABSTRACT: Solar thermal energy conversion has attracted substantial renewed interest due to its applications in industrial heating, air conditioning, and electricity generation. Achieving stagnation temperatures exceeding 200 °C, pertinent to these technologies, with unconcentrated sunlight requires spectrally selective absorbers with exceptionally low emissivity in the thermal wavelength range and high visible absorptivity for the solar spectrum. In this Communication, we report a semiconductor-based multilayer selective absorber that exploits the sharp drop in optical absorption at the bandgap energy to achieve a measured absorptance of 76% at solar wavelengths and a low emittance of approximately 5% at thermal wavelengths. In field tests, we obtain a peak temperature of 225 °C, comparable to that

SUBMITTER: Thomas NH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5509749 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature