Selective Surfaces of Ilmenite for Use in Solar Absorbers

Abstract

The world is moving at a fast pace in the consumption of non-renewable natural resources, causing several ecological problems. The search for the cost reduction by implementing renewable energies implies in the optimization of the manufacturing processes parameters of consolidated technologies, such as solar thermal energy collectors. One of the applications of selective surfaces is to improve performance of solar absorbers. The purpose of this work is to produce selective coatings with high absorption in range of UV/Vis and low emittance in the IR range. It was prepared a selective surface composed of ilmenite deposited on substrates of AISI 304 stainless steel using technique of cathodic cage plasma nitriding/deposition for application in solar thermal absorbers. Ilmenite was initially characterized by X-Ray Diffractometry (XRD), X-Ray Fluorescence (FRX) and Thermal Analysis (TGA). The coatings produced were optically characterized in range UV/Vis/IR and emittance and data on the roughness parameters of the films were obtained by Optical Profilometry. Selective surfaces with high solar absorbance (87%) compared with state-of-the-art commercial ones (70-80%) and low thermal emission (14%) compared with state-of-the-art commercial ones (20-30%) were obtained by validating the potential of ilmenite to produce selective surfaces for thermal solar collectors.

Keywords:
selective surfaces; solar absorbers; ilmenite; hollow cathode deposition