Design and global optimization of high-efficiency solar thermal systems with tungsten cermets
Solar thermal, thermoelectric, and thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems have high maximum theoretical efficiencies; experimental systems fall short because of losses by selective solar absorbers and TPV selective emitters. To improve these critical components, we study a class of materials known as cerm...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
Optical Society of America
2013
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/76332 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7184-5831 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7244-3682 |
| Summary: | Solar thermal, thermoelectric, and thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems have high maximum theoretical efficiencies; experimental systems fall short because of losses by selective solar absorbers and TPV selective emitters. To improve these critical components, we study a class of materials known as cermets. While our approach is completely general, the most promising cermet candidate combines nanoparticles of silica and tungsten. We find that 4-layer silica-tungsten cermet selective solar absorbers can achieve thermal transfer efficiencies of 84.3% at 400 K, and 75.59% at 1000 K, exceeding comparable literature values. Three layer silica-tungsten cermets can also be used as selective emitters for InGaAsSb-based thermophotovoltaic systems, with projected overall system energy conversion efficiencies of 10.66% at 1000 K using realistic design parameters. The marginal benefit of adding more than 4 cermet layers is small (less than 0.26%, relative). |
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