SBIR Phase II: Solar Thermal Collector Using Advection Enhanced Nano-Porous Insulating Media

SBIR 第二阶段：使用平流增强纳米多孔绝缘介质的太阳能集热器

• 批准号: 1456103
• 负责人: Mark Miles
• 金额: $ 74.98万
• 依托单位: Mark Miles Consulting Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-03-01 至 2017-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1456103&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; Solar; Thermal

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will profoundly improve the economics of solar water heating (SWH) systems. Little innovation has occurred in this area since the advent of evacuated tube solar thermal collectors in the 1980s. Despite these advances the cost of SWH systems is much higher than the cost of fossil fuels in the U.S. Thus while there exists a flourishing global market in excess of $20B, the market for such systems in the U.S. is virtually nonexistent. The solar thermal collector technology under investigation has demonstrated performance in terms of efficiency vs. output temperature that is already superior to that of state-of-the-art collectors. Economic modeling further indicates that in high volume production the collector would be substantially less expensive than commercial products. This combination of improved performance and reduced cost has the potential to make SWH economically viable in more than 40 states in the U.S. An outcome which could provide a solid economic foundation for the revival of a domestic industry, and accelerate the proliferation of these systems worldwide. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will extend the performance envelope of two solar thermal collector architectures identified during the Phase I effort. Current solar thermal collectors exhibit non-economic price/performance metrics and are constrained to water heating applications in only a few markets worldwide. The first architecture utilizes advection to improve the insulating properties of a granular nano-porous medium. The Phase II effort will transition this architecture from prototype to the fabrication and characterization of an engineering scale collector. It is expected that increasing the size and solar simulator output (currently below reference standard) will increase efficiency significantly. Material dopants, heat transfer fluid dynamics, and optical absorber thermal properties will be examined computationally and experimentally to further improve performance. The second architecture significantly extends the operational range. This effort will explore techniques to expand this range including the use of material dopants to modify optical characteristics and the development of passive technique for concentrating optics. Computer simulations suggest that outputs comparable to that of a parabolic trough are possible.

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）二期项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将深刻地提高太阳能热水（SWH）系统的经济性。自20世纪80年代真空管太阳能集热器问世以来，这一领域的创新很少。尽管取得了这些进步，但在美国，SWH系统的成本远高于化石燃料的成本。因此，尽管全球市场规模超过200亿美元，但在美国，此类系统的市场几乎不存在。正在研究的太阳能集热器技术在效率与输出温度方面的表现已经优于最先进的集热器。经济模型进一步表明，在大批量生产中，收集器将比商业产品便宜得多。这种性能提升和成本降低的结合，有可能使SWH在美国40多个州具有经济可行性。这一结果可能为国内行业的复兴提供坚实的经济基础，并加速这些系统在全球的扩散。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目将扩展在第一阶段工作中确定的两个太阳能热收集器架构的性能范围。目前的太阳能集热器表现出非经济的价格/性能指标，并且仅限于全球少数市场的水加热应用。第一种结构利用平流来改善颗粒状纳米多孔介质的绝缘性能。第二阶段的工作将把这个架构从原型过渡到工程规模收集器的制造和表征。预计增加太阳能模拟器的尺寸和输出（目前低于参考标准）将显著提高效率。材料掺杂剂，传热流体动力学和光学吸收热性能将进行计算和实验研究，以进一步提高性能。第二个体系结构显著地扩展了操作范围。这项工作将探索扩大这一范围的技术，包括使用材料掺杂剂来改变光学特性和开发聚光的被动技术。计算机模拟表明，与抛物线槽相当的输出是可能的。