Aerogel-based solar thermal receivers
Name
aerogel_receiver_v15.pdf
Description
Main article
Size
466.83 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
McEnaney, Kenneth
Weinstein, Lee Adragon
Kraemer, Daniel
Ghasemi, Hadi
Chen, Gang
Date Issued
October 2017
Journal
Nano Energy
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Citation
McEnaney, Kenneth et al. "Aerogel-based solar thermal receivers." Nano Energy 40 (October 2017): 180-186 © 2017 Elsevier
Version
Original manuscript
Abstract
In any solar thermal application, such as solar space heating, solar hot water for domestic or industrial use, concentrating solar power, or solar air conditioning, a solar receiver converts incident sunlight into heat. In order to be efficient, the receiver must ideally absorb the entire solar spectrum while losing relatively little heat. Currently, state-of-the-art receivers utilize a vacuum gap above an absorbing surface to minimize the convection losses, and selective surfaces to reduce radiative losses. Here we investigate a receiver design that utilizes aerogels to suppress radiation losses, boosting the efficiency of solar thermal conversion. We predict that receivers using aerogels could be more efficient than vacuum-gap receivers over a wide range of operating temperatures and optical concentrations. Aerogel-based receivers also make possible new geometries that cannot be achieved with vacuum-gap receivers. Keywords: Solar receiver; Solar thermal; Aerogel
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2017.08.006
